Uri Levine - Author, Entrepreneur, and Disruptor | Love The Problem, Not The Solution

So when I say falling love with the problem, what it really means is start with the problem but there is way more into that. The problem then remains the north star of your entire journey and every day you're asking yourself. You're really mean. Woody, let me. Ford member, mentor, he's an avid cyclist and skier, he's an author, he's a 2x unicorn entrepreneur, co-founded ways, he's involved in 12 startups, I know. Speak to me about what it means to truly fall in love with the problem. What problem did you fall in love with when you built ways? I hate traffic jams, it's a good problem. Across all the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, what do you think is the most common is the leads to the highest failure rate of a company? It's probably a combination of the two firsts to starting with the solution and not with the problem and therefore you are unable to figure out product market feed because there is no value creation. The second one is about Are some of the insights that you've gained from starting, scaling, growing and preparing for an exit of that size you do at once? Okay, good job. You do it twice, there's a formula. How did you grow to unicorn status? One of the points that you brought up in the book is the importance of firing and then hiring the right people in that order. Explain that point. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They've been supporting this show for over two years now and when it comes to running an incredible business, HubSpots got your back now. If you're an entrepreneur, you know that nothing matters more than generating revenue, but sales people aren't just closing deals, they're tracking down leads, they're forecasting growth, they're whipping up reports, managing contacts, creating content, crunching numbers. The list of tasks goes on and on with Q4 around the corner. There's a better way to win it all starts with the new HubSpot sales hub. Now with the HubSpot sales hub, your data, tools and teams are fully linked inside a smart and highly customizable platform that feels good to use. It's easy to turn prospects into pipeline and close your deals all in one place. Plus, sequences and smooth workflows help reps, streamline tasks and spend more time on what they do best, connecting with customers. With sales hub, closing big deals is simple. Try for yourself at hubspot.com slash sales. So I think there were many of them, but essentially I grew up in a house that my parents encouraged me to try things. So if I would come to them with a great idea or lousy idea or any idea, they would say, why don't you give it a try? And there was no judgment afterwards. And the result is that it built my character at the end of the day to do something that has a higher likelihood of taking risk, lower fear of failure and willing to try different things, even though that I don't know what the results are going to be. And so that was maybe one moment that ended up to be very important in my life. Another one was in my 20s when it was time to actually go and decide, what is it that I want to study? I had multiple choices and I actually went to my dad and say, look, I have a few options and I don't know which one to choose. And my dad reached out to his pocket and get a coin out and said, I'm going to flip the coin and before the coin drops, you're going to make the call. So essentially a very powerful tool of making decisions. And in many cases, you know, the reality is that we know what is the right decision. We are looking for confirmation and to a certain extent, I would say the coin will drop and that is going to be your confirmation. So I think these two are actually tended or ended up to be very significant in my childhood first and then in my early 20s on both taking risks and accepting failures on one hand and then on making decisions. I love those lessons and I think that it's important to walk through that mindset that you had going into all your companies, the ability to take on risks. Because we feel like entrepreneurship is risky. But ultimately, I've spoken to so many entrepreneurs and the lessons are generally the same. It's no less risky than committing your whole life to a company that could fire you tomorrow. It's really not that much riskier. But walk me through some of those risks that you took early on because one thing that I found with every single entrepreneur in the world is more often than not, the first thing they build is not the successful thing. So they take lots of risks, they fail quite a bit. So what did you first start building? Like I know ways was probably not the first thing you ever tried or the version of ways that we know it to be is not definitely not the first version of what it was. So let me by generalizing that, building a startup is a journey of failures. And this is really dramatic. People don't realize that because we want to think that the journey is easy, but it's never easy. And the most important part is the realization that this is a journey of failures because you know, we're trying to build something new that no one did before. And we think that we know exactly what we are doing, but the reality is that we don't. So we try. We take our hypothesis and we basically say this is definitely going to work. We make our decision or our roadmap or our first version with the conviction that this is it. And then we find out that it's not. And we are trying it all over again. And we are doing it again and again and again. So there are two immediate conclusions when you realize that building a startup is a journey of failure. The first one is that if you're afraid to fail, then in reality you already failed. Because you're not going to try. Albert Einstein used to say that if you haven't failed that because you haven't tried anything new before and Michael Jordan says that or Wayne Retsky or all of them can accept failure but cannot accept not trying. And so this is becoming critical. If you want to innovate, if you want to build something new, if you want to try something new, you should prepare to fail. The second one, which ended up to be equally important in particular in the end of entrepreneurship journey is that the realization that if this is going to be a journey of failures, then if I fail fast, I actually increased the likelihood of being successful because I have enough time to make another try and another try and another try. And the result is that I have multiple opportunities that essentially increased the likelihood of being successful. So once we realize that this is going to be a journey of failures, we need to number one, accept the fact that we are willing to go into this journey and we know how to recover from a failure or an error or a mistake fast. And we establish that as part of our DNA. And the second one is that we need to fail fast. The faster that we fail, we actually buy ourselves enough time to make another attempt. And that was always the case. Now I ended up looking at entrepreneurs and travel makers. They will be the ones that are skipping school, but not just skipping school, being kicked out of any class that they were before. And they are the ones that don't take anything for granted. So they will challenge different decisions based on their point of view. And in a growing company, this is an asset. In a stabilized company, this is a nightmare because you become the one that challenge everything, right? And don't accept anything for granted. And the result is that you will get fired eventually. Travelmakers will get fired because corporates cannot survive with travel makers. And your right was not the first startup that I was involved, but I actually started my career as a software developer at the Israeli military service the IDF. And I spend there about six years and then I become software developer at Converse Technology. Now we tend to forget exactly what Converse was, but long, long, long, long time ago, there were voicemail systems that were actually doing coal answering for most of the services. And the Converse was the market leader of those. And that company turns out to be very successful when the mobile started to become relevant. And so there were more and more and more mailboxes that we have sold. And in over the years, I realized that there are different things that I would like to build. And in multiple cases, they asked me to stay and build that in house. So as long as Converse was growing company, there was an opportunity for me to try to build new stuff within the company. As soon as that growth stopped, then I realized that I need to go someplace else. And my fair startup was about mobile email back in 2000 and that ended up to be unsuccessful. And after that, I took a pose from building startups and I went to work for an American corporate. And after that, I went back to Tel Aviv and was helping different startups until 2007. And this is where we started ways. And so what you asked me something about failures, because you mentioned something very important, failing fast. So in that startup that failed, how did you know when it was time to call it quits? How do you fail fast? How did you fail fast? So let's separate between starting down a company and failures or errors or mistakes throughout the journey. Because the journey is very important in the sense that you have everything that you would have in your roadmap. For me, it's a list of experiments that you're going to conduct. And you will try with the first one that you think that is going to work. And you will end with the first one that is actually working. There is a nice story that they heard about LinkedIn. I don't know how through it is. But for a second, I would say, let's assume for a second that it's true. And if it's not true, then assume that it is true for the sake of the discussion. And when LinkedIn started, they actually had 30 features that they wanted to develop. And they basically say, this is the minimum product. And when they started to meet investors, everyone told them that 30 features is way too long. And they need to reduce that list, to less than that. And they ended up with a list of 10 features that they said, we cannot even launch the product without those 10 features. Obviously, LinkedIn started and eventually they were becoming public and then acquired by Microsoft and then becoming public again. But the first time that they went public, how many of those 10 features they actually developed? And the answer is one, just one. So in that sense, they were lucky that they figured out the first feature that they need to develop at the beginning. I don't know how through this story is, but for the sake of the discussions, let's assume that it is. The roadmap is eventually a list of features that you're going to develop. In each one of them has an objectives to figure out product market fit. And if they do, then the product development is done. And if they're not, then you try another one. And that is the important part of the failures. So you don't stick with something that doesn't work. You keep on trying. You keep on trying different things. For the question, when do you know that it's time to shut down a company? You eventually fall in love with the problem. And once you start to build your team, this is your mission in life. You will never give up. And never giving up. Preserverance is the most important behavior for an entrepreneur. Not necessarily of a CEO, but for an entrepreneur, they don't give up. And if you would ask me, how do you know that it's time to give up? So number one, you never know. You don't know. Number two, I would add my advice that is basically saying, look, if one of the two following is happened, then you should give up. One is that the problem disappears. The first startup that we started in year 2000, it called Axis Mobile. And what we tried to do is actually provide an email access through WAP phones. So a very, very long time ago. And the problem disappeared as soon as Blackberry started. So there was sort of a very different approach for the solution, which made our solution irrelevant. And to a certain extent, I would say the problem disappeared. So if problem disappears, you should quit. The other reason is, if the team is not right and you're unable to change that, if you're the CEO, then it should be able in a position to change that. But in many cases, you don't. And then you end up with a place that might have the right mission, but not the right DNA. And you don't want to stay in a place like that. So this is time to shut it down. These are the only two reasons that I can figure out why you should quit. And in general, I would say look at it, but I don't keep up. I know that's something. So I think that what I value that lesson so much, because the concept of never giving up, it does conflict with the concept of failing quickly. So it's good to have an understanding of what your organization is growing into, what you're, again, the problem you're trying to solve is it's still there. And then the other point you mentioned, the right people, but let's talk about, let's talk about the problem, right? I mean, you wrote a book. And I'm stopping you for a second. Yeah. The thing of the following, right? When you go into this journey, there is a problem that you're trying to address, right? And this is becoming your mission. So for a second, I would say if the mission is right and the team is right, then you shouldn't give up. If one of them is going away, then you should start to consider, if both of them, the definitely you should consider of giving up. But the journey of failures is not about the essence of the start, of the essence of the start-up is about the problem they're trying to solve, the value that they're about to create. And it's about the way to get there. And the way to get there is a journey of failures. Understood. I understand. Okay. I want to understand the title of the book that you wrote, fallen love with the problem, not the solution. So we're dancing around this now, but speak to me about what it means to truly fall in love with the problem. What problem did you fall in love with when you built ways? I hate traffic jams. It's a good problem. You know, end of the day, and I'm pretty sure that you have met many entrepreneurs. They all have a starting point that touched them on a personal level, right? And not all, but most of them. And in many cases, this is about frustration. So you're running to something and you ended up being frustrated, and then you tell yourself, no, no, no, this is something that I'm going to change. There is no way that this is how it works. And this is the key driver for most of my startups is running into situations that they tell myself, wait a minute, they mind the only one that is getting frustrated because of that. And then you start to discuss that with or speak with other people until you realize that this problem is real, or at least the perception of the problem is real. And so for me, you know, the journey is always about starting with a problem. So finding a problem, a big problem, something that it's worth solving, something that the world will become a better place if we solve that. And then the next thing that you really would like to do is ask yourself, so who has this problem? Now, if you happen to be the only person on the planet with this problem, then I would say, go to a shrink. It's much cheaper than building a startup, right? But if a lot of people actually have this problem, then go and speak with those people and understand their perception of the problem and only then build a solution. Now, if you follow this path and your solution works, it's guaranteed that you're creating value. If you start with the solution, you might be building something but nothing that no one cares. And that's really not a good idea. So when I say falling love with the problem, what it really means is start with the problem. But there is way more into that. The problem then remains the north star of your entire journey. And every day you are asking yourself, if I'm making a progress towards addressing this problem, right? And so if the problem was for way down, the reason that we start is that we hate traffic jams. We evolved that into a mission to help drivers to avoid traffic jams, right? Because the solution for the problem is very easy, avoiding the problem, right? So getting rid of the problem, problem disappears or we are avoiding that or overcome that. And that makes it easy. As long as you keep that as the north star of your company, then you increase the likelihood of being successful. And you increase the likelihood by basically saying, I know where I'm going. I don't know what's the next step or I do know what's next step. But I have no idea what's the step after next, but I know where I'm going. The other part of it is that it makes your story so much easier to be told that your marketing is becoming easier. Your fundraising is becoming easier. Everything is creating or the entire story is much easier. Because if I will tell you, you know, I'll have a time machine. We will roll back in 2007. And I will come into this podcast. Well, that podcast wasn't here. I think in 2000. It wasn't. But I get the point. But that assumed that we are. And I will tell you, I'm building an AI crowdsource navigation system. Then you don't really care. But if I will tell you, I'm helping you to avoid traffic jams and all of a sudden you do care. And so the story is easier to be told. And usually story, you know, when you tell a story about the problem, then there is an emotional engagement for many of the people in particular, if they have experienced similar problem or the same problem. So falling in love with the problem, essentially increase your likelihood of being successful, increase the likelihood of becoming a market leader through two main things, right? The north star. And therefore, the mission of the companies is is clearer and easier and remains the same throughout the entire journey. And the story that the tale is much easier. As you all know, the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network, which has incredible podcasts for entrepreneurs, business leaders, people just wanting to upskill themselves. One of my favorites that you need to go check out is my first million hosted by Sam Parr and Sean Perry. They have incredible guests, Alex Hermosi, Sophia Amaruso, Hassan Minhash, all sharing their secrets, how they made their first million and how to apply their learnings to capitalize on today's business trends and opportunity. Go listen to my first million wherever you get your podcast. I have a question about how you came up with the solution to the problem that you fell in love with. I mean, you find out that everybody hates traffic. That's not really surprising. Everybody, of course, it's frustrated by traffic. But how do you find the right solution that will actually disrupt a broken market or industry or have it? So in the case of ways, that was actually a combination that were coming from two different sizes. One came from which I've tied the CTO of ways and the other one came from from my perspective. And for me, that was back in 2006 that we were spending a vacation in the northern part of Israel. And back then, essentially, there were only two roads that you can go back to Tel Aviv. And we were about 10 different cars and at the time we had four little kids or relatively little kids and it took us a while to leave. And by the time we left, everyone else was already on the road. So I started calling them up, trying to figure out what is traffic gems like in their path. And I realized, and obviously some of them told me we are on this road and this is really packed. And some of them told me we are on the different road and it's not that bad. And I realized that the only thing that we need is someone ahead of us on the road to tell us what's going on. And they don't need to do anything in order to tell us what's going on. If we can measure that from their mobile phone. So that was one of the Eureka moment. The second one was actually came from the city of ways was very similar and that was crowd sourcing not just of the traffic information but the map itself. So essentially the magic of ways is that we the drivers are creating all the content that is being used by the application. And today you think about it and you use ways and you realize, okay, traffic information, I understand, speed traps, I understand. But the magic is that the maps themselves were crowd source. Because when you drive someplace, we know that there is a road, right? And if there is an intersection that no one is making left turn, then then no left turn is allowed, right? If there is a, you can tell the difference between a street and a main road. If there is a road that there are a hundred people going into in one direction, there is no one else climbing that direction. That is one way straight and you know what, if there is a road that there are a hundred people going into one direction and there are only two driving that direction. This is one way straight in Tel Aviv. And so essentially we realize that and the magic of ways is that we crowd sourced the map data, not just the traffic information. Now this is critical because when you think of traffic, you say, okay, in order for that to work, I need to have a lot of drivers. Because if I have a driver a day, then I don't know what's traffic like. But in order to have a lot of drivers, then I need the application to be free. Otherwise, people are not going to pay for it. In order for the application to be free, we need to create our own maps. Because at the time, licensing the maps was extremely expensive. And so the real magic of ways is the crowd sourcing of the map. The idea of crowd sourcing of the map in order to crowdsource the traffic information and was made what made ways essentially is so much more successful than any other driving map. And if you that one sentence fall in love with the problem, it's not a static sentence, it's not a static concept or thought. Because what I'm seeing now is even the way that you built the business model is obsessing over the problem that your users have. Because the fact that you made it free, that's a business model choice, right? That you have to find alternative revenue streams now. So speak to me about the concept of falling in love with the problem over the life cycle of a company, an app. How do you constantly continue to understand your users so that as you build up the business, look for different business models, different directions, different paths, it's always derived back to and focused back on falling in love with the problem that your users are experiencing. So for a second, I would say the mission is about the problem, right? So we are going to help drivers to avoid traffic jams and that remains the mission from the first day of ways until the day of the acquisition and actually up until now. But when you think of a startup journey, then you realize that there are multiple phases into this journey and the first is always the same. It's about product market feet. If you, so in product market feet, by and large, is about creating value to your customers or to your users. And so if you don't figure out product market feet, you will die as simple as that. In fact, you never heard of a company that did not figure out product market feet. They died peacefully and you didn't hear about it. All the companies that you have heard of, it's after they figure out product market feet. Now getting there is a long journey. It was three and a half years since 2007 until the end of 2010 for ways. It was five years from Microsoft, it was ten years from Netflix, it was many years for each and every company that you know to figure out product market feet. And this by itself is a journey of errors, right? Because you're trying different things until you find one thing that does work. The day that you figure that out, the day that you actually creating value to your customers that they are keep on coming back is the day that you need to switch journeys. And the journey of product market feet is now to some extent ended. If you want me to demonstrate that, that's really easy. Just imagine you know all the applications that you're using every day, being searching Google, using WhatsApp, using Waze, using Facebook, using Netflix, Uber, whatever it is. And ask yourself one question, what is the difference between any of those applications that we are using today and the first time that we have used it? And the answer is that there is no difference. We are searching Google today the same way that we search Google for the first time in our life. We're using Waze the same way. We're using the messenger or WhatsApp or Uber or whatever the same way. So once you figure out product market feet, that journey is completed. And then you are up to the next journey, which could be about business model, could be about growth, could be about going global. And each one of them is a journey by itself and each one of them is a journey of errors. And we usually would like to think that we actually control the order, but we don't. The order is actually being defined by the use case of our service. So for a second, I would say all those people that struggle once they figure out product market feet and struggle location, we try to figure out growth now, or should we try to figure out business model now? I would say no, no, go back to the product and ask yourself two questions, right? The frequency of use is the first one. If the frequency of use is high, then you will eventually figure out growth before you are going to figure out a business model. If the frequency of use low, then you start with figuring out business model before you figure out growth. And the reason is very simple. High frequency of use, you will end up with ward of mouth growth. It doesn't matter what you're doing at the beginning. The end game is ward of mouth. Frequency of use is low, then no matter how much you want to become ward of mouth, it will never get there. Not enough chances for someone to reuse or use again the product and tell someone else. And so the first definition is frequency of use, and that determines your order of the journey, whether or not after figuring out product market fee, you're going to figure out growth or figuring out business model. The second one is the duration of use. If the duration of use long and you have high frequency of use, you will end up with advertisement. That's it, as simple as that. If the duration of use is short, you will end up with your business model is going to be selling data. If the frequency of use is low, you will end up with customer pain, and therefore you will need to figure out business model first. And that's really simple. This isn't the consumer space, obviously business to business to business. This is very different. So you would like to think that it's up to us, but it's not. I love that. It's such a very clear framework when you lay it out. So simply, what can you walk me through? It's laying out frameworks and then explain to you how you're going to figure that out. And what are the actions that you need to do? And it speaks about figuring out product market fee, business models, raising capital, going global growth, understanding users. And so each one of them is being cut in the book as a separate chapter and basically saying, this is the framework. You're going to follow this framework and you increase the likelihood of being successful. One of the points that you brought up in the book is the importance of firing and then hiring the right people in that order. Explain that point. So let me start with a story. And I ended up with speaking with many entrepreneurs. There is a worry there in the panel that everyone knows, but there is another very strong character set of worry, which is a teacher. And I mentor multiple CEOs and I wrote the book in order to fulfill my destiny as a teacher. But during my dialogues with entrepreneurs, I spoke with many that their startup failed and asked them what happened. And about half say the team was not right, by the way, even though that half say that it's not true. The reality is that most startup failed because they did not figure out product market feed. But for a second, let's take that. So half say the team was not right and I kept on asking, what do you mean the team was not right? And some told me, we had this guy not good enough, this guy not good enough. We expected the CTO to hire 10 engineers and he was unable to hire any. So not good enough was one reason that they heard quite often. Not a reason that they heard quite often or a little bit less, but I heard that a lot is we had communication issues. So something that I actually called ego management issues. And then I have been the most interesting question. When did you know that the team is not right? All of them knew within the first month, within the first month, there was one guy that told me before we even started. Then he said, wait a minute. If you knew within the first month that the team is not right and you didn't do anything, the problem was not that the team was not right. The problem was that you as a CEO did not make hard decision. Firing is hard decisions. Hiring is easy decisions. Making hard decisions is hard. And this is why it's way more important. In fact, if you look at successful companies, then you would see that one of the most significant behavior of the CEOs is making decisions with conviction. When you don't make a decision, the problem is not that you are going to someplace that it's out of your control. The problem is that everyone knows. So just imagine that there is someone in the team that shouldn't be there. That someone, it doesn't matter if this is because of poor performance or poor relationship with other employees. The result is that it shouldn't be there. Everyone knows. Everyone knows and the CEO doesn't do anything. And therefore, firing is way more important than hiring. And to a certain extent, if there is someone that is hiring people, I would say the most significant takeaway that you can take from this podcast is the following. Every new hire that you have throughout the entire organization, 30 days after this hire, ask yourself one question. Knowing what I know today would I hire this person. If the answer is no and fired immediately, you already put them in a situation that they're not going to be successful. And the longer that it's going to be dragged, the more damage that you create to the organization and to the leadership. Now, the reality is that if there is a team that is not right and the CEO doesn't do anything in a small startups, the top performing people would leave. They would leave because they have a choice. And that's the beginning of the end. So, you know, when I wrote this proposal, book proposal, and I sent that to different publishers, most of them told me, no, no, it should be hiring and firing. And I said, no, it should be firing and hiring. Firing is hard decision. Hiring is easy decision. You should learn how to fire first. And then you should learn how to hire. Across all the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and we've mentioned a few and spoken about a few, what do you think is the most common? Is it the hiring lack of conviction to fire? Is it the lack of ability to find product market fit and to look at a problem and instead focus on the solution? What do you think that one thing is that leads to the highest failure rate of a company? It's probably a combination of the two first. Starting with the solution and not with the problem. And therefore, you are unable to figure out product market fit because there is no value creation here. And the second one is about having the wrong team and inability to fire or inability to make hard decision. So not figuring on product market fit, which is usually the result of starting with a solution and not starting with the problem. Now, obviously, we can think of a very successful company that started with a solution, that no one even knew that there is a problem there and ended up to be very successful. But at the end of the day, when you look at most of the successful companies that started with the problem. Now, you've built two companies that have sold for over a billion dollars, so two two unicorns, which is incredible. I mean, it's tough enough building one unicorn, right? So what are some of the insights that you've gained from starting, scaling, growing, and preparing for an exit of that size? What has allowed you to scale? Because obviously, you do it once. Okay, good job. You do it twice. There's a formula. So you chose purposefully not to sell at a certain point. I'm assuming. So how did you grow to unicorn status? Why did you choose to take it to that level? You sold to Google and Intel. I would love to understand that journey. So I say it earlier, if you don't figure out product market feed, you will die. The good news is that if you do figure that out, you will be in a path of being successful. And at the end of the day, unicorns, and for a second, I would say, or significant companies are going to be such that that have aligned multiple stars in one line, right? So figuring out product market feed, figuring out growth, figuring out business model market is large enough, right? So you can do all those in a very small market and then no one cares. And then in many cases, you will figure out that there is in those that are successful, there is a sort of an X factor or a coolness factor that makes them cool. And people would like to speak about it. But the reality is that the formula is very simple. You need to realize that each one of them is going to be a journey. A journey of failures are rollercoaster journey of failures and with a very long period of time of no traction. And once you realize that, then you realize that you need to operate in phases and each phase, you focus on one of those missions, right? So you start with product market feed and then might be growth or might be business model. And if you figure them out, you're actually building a very successful company. If you fail to figure out a milestone, so if you fail to figure out product market feed, you will die. That's pretty established. But if you were able to figure out product market feed, which basically say, you know what? I know how to create value to my customer or to my users. And then you don't figure out growth. Then you go back and say, okay, I'm going to now try to figure out a business model. And your journey is going to be longer because you each one of those phases, it's a, it's three years phase, right? It could be five years phase. It could be maybe you're lucky and it's only two. But it's a long period of time to figure that out. And once you realize that you need to operate in phases and the biggest challenge for the company is when you switch phases, everything that was critical and relevant up until now is way less relevant from this point on. If you already figure out product market feed or in your journey to figure out product market feed, the product people are the most important one. You don't need sales. You don't, you don't even need marketing. You don't need anything else except figuring out the value that you create for your users. Once you are there, and by the way, product market feed is measured by one metric retention. People are coming back. And so once you figure that out, then you shift priorities. The most important thing for the company is changing dramatically. And that change, by the way, is very hard for many of the companies. In some cases, you need to be fast in management. In some case, you need to move people around in order to have the right people in the right place. And this is going to happen throughout the first decade of your journey multiple times. Once you figure out often, you are unique or maybe take a core and maybe even bigger than that. No, so if you figured out these phases, then through your own personal experience, what was the reason for exiting at that point? I guess the question is better phrased as, how does an entrepreneur know when it's time to exit? What's the strategy? How did they set themselves up? Is this something that you've envisioned from day one? Is this something that came to pass because you did have all those ducks in a row, you scaled, you got to a certain point, and you realize that this was right time, right place for exit. So walk me through the actual exit event. So for a second, and I would say this is maybe guidance for entrepreneurs. When is the right time to sell? So I would say ask yourself two or three different questions, right? And the first one is whether or not this is going to be a life changing event for you. If it is, then you should consider, if it's not, then keep on building. So this is the first one. The second one is whether or not you are an entrepreneur by blood and you know that you're going to build more startups or not. If this is once in a lifetime company for you, then you should consider sticking up with it. If you think that you're going to build an auto startup after that, then it's a good opportunity to actually leverage and exit and go and build the next startup. And then the third one is, and people, you know, in many entrepreneurs don't think about it until it's way too late, is that the day of transactions of M&A is changing everything for you. In particular, that you are now longer, you're no longer the owner of the company, right? And now you're becoming part of a larger organization and you have a boss. And this is very dramatic change for you in terms of the day after, with the underlying assumptions that most of the entrepreneurs when their startup is being sold, they would like to make sure that the integration work and they try to take care of the employees. And but there is a day after for you and this day after is very different than the day before. And so these are the three key questions that you need to ask yourself as an entrepreneur. Now in most cases, M&A's, they will come to you. You're not, you're not going for shopping. They will come to you. If you are creating enough traction and you becoming significant, they will come to you. And to a certain extent, I would say, look, if the company is growing and growing and growing and its valuation is becoming more significant and more significant, then what happened is that the number of potential buyers is being dramatically reduced. There are only very few players that might be able to write the check that order of magnitude. And the result is that many of the companies that are keep on growing eventually go public, not because of a choice, but because of there is no one that is going to acquire them or no one is willing to pay that. So in that sense, I would say the top three questions would be life changing events, yes or no. And is that once in a lifetime journey for you or you think you're going to build more startups? And then you need to think about the day after. Amazing. I want to wrap this up and I want to get some information as to where people can go get your book and go connect with you. But before we pivot and close this out, what's some last advice that you would want to give over to entrepreneurs that are just starting their journey? You know, I kind of, I would repeat that so many times, start with a problem. And look, it takes time to fall in love with the problem. It's not that you tell yourself, oh, I have an idea how I'm going to address that. Because at the end of the day, entrepreneurs, they will go into the entrepreneurship journey when their passion is so much greater than the fear of failures and the alternative costs. So if you're a lawyer and making a million dollars a year at a very established firm, they like the way that you would go into a journey that you start from scratch is small. And in order for you to go into this journey, you really want to be in love. You really need way higher level of passion for anything else that you have done in your lifetime in order to go through the challenging part of this journey. And starting with the problem, look for many cases, when you start to speak people with people about the problem, and they tell you their perspective of it, their story of it, it's empower you and it puts you in a position that you feel that it's your mission to solve that problem. And this is what you need to do. And start with that. And then the first thing that you need to figure out is that I need to figure out product market feed. And I don't care about anything else. Amazing. If people want to, well, first of all, when is the book coming out? Because I want to just timestamp so people can go, well, release is probably in about a month, but I think that books coming out in January. So what's the actual release date? And then where do people go get the book? And then also where do people connect with you so they can go learn more? Because I think that your mission in life now is teaching entrepreneurs, which is very admirable. So I want people to consume more of your content, whatever socials you want to drop. The book is going to be available on January 7th, and pretty much all their bookstores, and you know, Barnes and nobils, Amazon, and so forth. It's available today for pre-order, but it will be shipped on January 17th. There is of course my website, www.we livein.com, where there are some, you know, video content, video presentations, and additional information in LinkedIn and Facebook, essentially. Last question that I ask everyone. So we have all the socials. We'll put all this in the show notes. The book, all this will be great for the audience. But last question I ask everyone, and Erie, this is for yourself. You've had incredible success. You built multiple companies. Obviously there have been some failures, some successes, some massive successes. And looking back after you've accomplished everything you've accomplished, what does success mean for you? You know, it's the second time that I was asked this question today. That's really easy for me. It's about value creation, and it's about being meaningful. Right. And I have two ways to actually follow my path here. One is by building startups, and I have about a dozen of them. Then we only spoke about ways, but there are many matters. And it's about guiding and mentoring and teaching through presentations, and now through this book, other entities, and other business people, and hopefully being meaningful for them.