Full Transcript for Devin Shurtleff: Overcoming Challenges, Strategic Shifts, and Lessons from a CEO’s Leadership Legacy

of those co founders just recently. 00:03:05 - A And that's why you were newly appointed the CEO just recently. What was that? That was last. 00:03:09 - C It was in October. 00:03:10 - A October. Okay. So you. You're enjoying that CEO role. 00:03:14 - C U. It's been a lot of work. 00:03:16 - A It's been a lot of work. 00:03:17 - C It's been. It's been fun. 00:03:19 - A Yeah. 00:03:19 - C And some, I mean, a lot of challenges on others and you know, meeting and being with, you know, Justin all day, you know, every day, you know we say that. Right? But like, are we ever like working 24 7? Yeah, but u. But yeah, I mean being with him, I don't think I fully understood. 00:03:36 - A Yeah. 00:03:37 - C Everything that he did. 00:03:38 - B Like the role, like the 14 hats you wear. 00:03:40 - C Yeah. I mean, and a lot of it. Right. Like we always split our businesses. Like the front half of the business was sales, marketing. 00:03:46 - C Like he kind of led that. Right. And. And I was always the backup of the business. All the, all the fulfillment, the product operations, operations cx, like all that side. 00:03:56 - C And so that stuff's not new to me, but all like the front end and how to manage our metrics. And we've also got, you know, a new investor. 00:04:04 - B Investor relations. 00:04:05 - C Yeah. And so, um, which, uh, which has pressed us a little bit more on getting a little bit more granular in our metrics and stuff like that. So not only did, you know, I brought in this big role, but I'm also getting a lot of pressure coming down from. From our investors. 00:04:18 - A I think your journey has a lot of insights into leadership, adaptability and just the power of digging deep when it. When you need to dig deep. Which I'm excited to dive into today. But before we dive in on startup. 00:04:32 - B Ignition, Poder's gon toa have one of his do. 00:04:34 - A Yeah, here we go. We always do an icebreaker. I hope this is okay. So. And an icebreaker. 00:04:40 - A We just like set the tone of the podcast. Everybody sinks into their chair, gets comfortable, and it's just something fun. We always play like a little game with our guests. So is that okay? Let's do it. We're going to do. 00:04:50 - C Sure. 00:04:50 - A We're going to do an icebreaker and I'm going to do a rapid fire this or that. Okay. And I want you to participate too. 00:04:56 - C Yes. 00:04:57 - A Okay, so I'll be the. 00:04:58 - C I'll'cut it if it's embarrassing. 00:04:59 - A Yeah. If it's embarrassing, watch and keep it. That's even better. 00:05:03 - C This is a safe space there. 00:05:05 - A Remember? Okay. So the rapid fire this or that. You ready? So I'm going to say two things and you say which one you like or prefer, want or do over the other. Okay. It'snn be easy at first. 00:05:14 - A Ready? Energy drink or coffee? 00:05:16 - C Energy drink. Yep. 00:05:18 - B I don't drink coffee. I do neither. For me I do energy drinkah. 00:05:23 - A Okay. Early bird or night owl? 00:05:27 - C

I'm both. Yeah, I get up early and I. 00:05:29 - B Stay late, so I don't need much sleep either. But I'm definitely a night owl. 00:05:33 - A Yeah, you are a night owl. You. How much sleep do you get? I need so much sleep. 00:05:38 - C I'm like five to six hours. 00:05:40 - A Oh my gosh. 00:05:41 - B Yeah. 00:05:41 - A My reason, six to eight. 00:05:43 - B My reason for night owl and my entrepreneurur was just this. I can. I got to get something done. If I went to bed and said, oh, I'll get up early and get it done, I worry that it won't work. I'll wake up late, I won't get it done. 00:05:54 - B So I just go until I get it done, then go to bed. And if I only get four hours sleep, I only get four hours sleep. 00:05:58 - C Yeah, that'okay. 00:06:00 - A Equity or salary? 00:06:02 - C Oh, equity. 00:06:03 - A Equity. 00:06:03 - C Equity. 00:06:04 - B Equity. 00:06:05 - C What are we doing? I want. 00:06:07 - B Give me a zero salary. I'll clean the toilets and give me a big equity option package. Thank you. 00:06:14 - A And then also with big salary, you probably wouldn't do great jobs. I mean, I'm just saying, even though you have a very high salary job and a very low equity or no equity, like there's a lot of things you wouldn't do. 00:06:26 - C Yeah. 00:06:26 - B The bottom line principle here. And we say this all time. It's always good to do teachings. When you take a salary and work for the man, you are renting your time to someone else. When you're an equity holder, you've got a piece of the rock and you can have a life changing event. 00:06:41 - C Y. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think uh, you know, salary equity too. I mean it comes at a, at like a stage. Right. 00:06:48 - C Like in the beginning, you've. You've at least got to cover your, your basis. 00:06:50 - B Yeah. 00:06:51 - C Right. 00:06:51 - A You got to get your nut every month for you and your family and what you need to cover. 00:06:54 - C Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I mean even a story about that we have a, you know, one of. One of my co founders. Like he, um, uh, not to get into your this or that. I derail it a little bit, but. 00:07:03 - A O. I'll get back into it. 00:07:04 - C But in the beginning, I mean, he talked about he's like I got to have a salary right. Coming in this and the rest of us, like we weren't taken anything and we were just putting it all back in. He's like I got to have it right. And he ended up taking a lower equity package because of that. We were all going to split it pretty evenly. 00:07:20 - C He's taken it now and it has cost him so much. Millions of dollars. 00:07:24 - B Ye. And the point is this is that nowhere in the world can you get this kind of risk reward ratio. Take 30,000, do $50,000 less salary and get more equity. And sure, maybe it doesn't work out and you've taken a hit on salary for a year or two. But the equity trade, if the company does make it, is like you just said, millions of dollars. 00:07:47 - C Oh yeahaheah. Absolutely. 00:07:48 - A Okay,

next. This or that. Not to cut off the stories because I love the stories. 00:07:52 - C You good? 00:07:53 - A String cheese or protein bar? 00:07:56 - C I'm a string cheese guy. 00:07:57 - A String cheese or protein bar? 00:07:59 - B If it's a protein bar I like because I'm very picky on which ones I like, but I always love string cheese. I was just, I was trying to. 00:08:05 - A Think startup fooding cheese. Che'a protein bar. 00:08:07 - C Do you like the bill bar? 00:08:10 - B Uh oh. Nick Greer, are you watching? I like protein. The built bar. Okay. They're just a little bit sweet for me the way they are. 00:08:19 - A Okay, I'll back up. Nick. Nick. We have tons of built bars in our house. 00:08:22 - B They just can'their candy bar. 00:08:23 - C My wife them different. 00:08:25 - B Yeah. So I like a little more chocolate covering on mine, believe it or not. 00:08:29 - A Oay, here we go. 00:08:30 - C We got a go. 00:08:30 - A Little quicker. I have 10 of these guys. I we've only done four. This is supposed to be rapid fire. Okay. 00:08:35 - A Work from home or office Work? 00:08:37 - C Office. 00:08:38 - A Office. 00:08:38 - C Yep. 00:08:39 - B Yeah, office. 00:08:41 - A Office. I think there's so much you can do in the office that you can't do the little nuances from working by people. Oh my gosh. I always used to set that tone when I was building my startup. 00:08:50 - B I was in an operating company. 100% office later in life. It's kind of nice from home sometimes. 00:08:55 - C Yeah. 00:08:55 - A Okay. Summer or winter? 00:08:59 - C Summer. 00:09:00 - A Summer. 00:09:00 - B Summer. 00:09:01 - A Yep. Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. 00:09:06 - C I like what Elon's doing. 00:09:08 - B Elon Musk. 00:09:09 - A Elon Musk. We're Elon fans over here. 00:09:11 - B Jeff Bezos is coming around though. He's coming around. But Elon Musk. I just listened to the all in podcast, the most recent episode, and the guests were the founders of Stripe, and all of them were sitting and talking about six or seven major companies Elon Musk is doing simultaneously and game changing in all of them. It's unprecedented. 00:09:36 - C It'sild. Yeah. 00:09:38 - A It's so funny not to derail this conversation again, but I was watching something and they were talking about how Elon Musk is technically the hardest worker in the world because he's the richest man. And if you just, if you equate working hard to outputs, like it's like from. From 2020 to 2022, like he like, you know, became the richest man in the world and they're just like, okay, technically, Elon Musk is the hardest worker ever. 00:10:01 - C Yeah. 00:10:01 - A And just like, it's just the leverage that he had. 00:10:03 - B But then like, I teach entrepreneurship and mentor people and help them a lot and academically, look at the reason why things happen. What he did with Tesla was genius. Like his first market was going to tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Why was that so genius? Is because he didn't try to make

a family car for the soccer mom. He tried to say tech entrepreneurs. 00:10:23 - B I'm making a cool computer that drives and there's going toa be lots of glitches and weird things. At first I might not have the range down. The battery might. May be perfect. But it's a cool computer that drives. 00:10:32 - C Who? 00:10:32 - B The only patient market for that would be gadget freaks in Silicon Valley. 00:10:36 - C Right. 00:10:37 - B So then he figured out the range and the battery and got everything figured out. It just. That's great entrepreneurship. 00:10:44 - A Yeah. 00:10:44 - C Well, yeah. And even at. At the price point he came in at. Right. It was like a hundred grand for a Tesla back in. 00:10:50 - C I got mine in first one in 2017. 00:10:54 - A Oh, you were early. 00:10:55 - C I was an early adopter. I would come out of stores. 00:10:57 - B Yeah. 00:10:58 - C And people be taking pictures. Go. Now you see them everywhere. Right. 00:11:00 - A I remember when he got the Tesla plaid, it was the first plaid version that came out and it was like, everybody's gaga over. I remember people would come out of the grocery store and just like, is that a plaid? 00:11:10 - C There's no one at them. Yeaheah. 00:11:13 - A Okay, next one. Stealth mode or big public launch? 00:11:18 - C Stealth. Yeah, yeah. 00:11:20 - A Let's say you're working on something new. What are you doing? You stealth moding it or are you doing some grand opening or some Big public launch. 00:11:26 - B My thing on PR is literally I like to win on the field of competition and manage expectations. PR builds up expectations. I just, when I tell entrepreneurs just go win on the field. You don't need to win in the newspaper or the media. Right? 00:11:41 - C Yeah. Well, I'm not, I'm not like a very loud person. Like I don't have a very loud personality. And so we've always just kind of coast on the. 00:11:47 - A Kept it under the rad who you're. 00:11:48 - B Talking on the field. 00:11:49 - A I like it. 00:11:49 - B Throwing touchdowns says a lot, right? 00:11:52 - C Yeah. Okay. 00:11:53 - A City life or country life? 00:11:55 - C Country life. 00:11:56 - B Yeah. U. I definitely don't like hardcore sea life. I'm kind of a suburban life guy in the middle, to be honest with you. 00:12:03 - A Yeah, I guess. 00:12:03 - C Well, if I had to pick between the two, absolutely. But I'm more of that too. I don't want to be so far from the grocery and doing stuff. But I hate like. 00:12:10 - A But you're not in the butt crack of Utah on your five acres of land, are you? Right. No. You like the middle ground. Okay, Middle ground. 00:12:17 - C I'm on an acre in Highland. O. There you go. Gives you the land there. 00:12:20 - A Okay. Bootstrapped or VC funded? 00:12:25 - B Bootstrapped as long as you can until it chokes growth. If your growth rate stays like this, then go get some external capital to get the slope of growth higher. But if you can get the slope of growth like this with bootstrapping. Bootstrap. 00:12:40 - C Yeah, yeah. I'm in that camp as well. But I do like VCs that also offer something beyond cap or beyond capital. 00:12:48 - A Yeah, right. 00:12:48 - C So like if they can offer you some sort of connection or in or something like that, they've got connections to some sort of market you're trying to go after. Take the money. 00:12:55 - A That's a great plug for startup Ignition Ventures. 00:12:58 - B Yeah, so like we're a pre seed venture fund, but what series A funds we get in entrenches and help people at the early stages. I think we're pretty good at it. But where series A funds are good at is helping you build the next layer team past the founders. When you need those real rockarss to take you from 2 million to 10 million, they have the network to also help find those kind of managers that would never join you when you're at 50,000 revenue. Right. 00:13:22 - C Abute. 00:13:22 - B But at 2 million they come in and bring you to 10. 00:13:24 - C Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have. I mean we just raised our series A in December last year of 23. Right. So it's been a year In a couple months. 00:13:33 - C But, I mean, they immediately put in, um, a VP of finance for us. Game changer. Absolutely. Game changer. I mean, and those. 00:13:42 - C Yeah. Like. 00:13:43 - B And you needed it then. 00:13:44 - C Oh, you didn't need it four years ago. 00:13:46 - A Yeah. Okay. That was a great this or that. Great case Breakaker. I feel like we're all comfortable. 00:13:50 - C We're all eng. 00:13:51 - B That was because there's a lot of teachings in. 00:13:53 - A Yeah, yeah, great. It was great. So, okay, rewind a little bit and going back to what. Where your intro was. And I don't think for the viewer's sake, we never even discuss what opinion does. 00:14:02 - A So opinion is. It automates a process of gathering feedback and reviews and specifically for resident complexes or. 00:14:13 - C Yeah, for multiple Me. 00:14:14 - A Tell me what opinion was. 00:14:15 - C Yeah. So we are. We want to measure and manage the resident experience at every step of their journey. Right from the second they learn about a property all the way until they move out, we are measuring the experience of the resident there in big multifily apartment complexes. So we work with the nation's largest management companies. 00:14:35 - C We have about a million and a half units that use our software w. On. On a monthly basis to be able to gather feedback from residents and, um, and then understand, like, what they can improve on. So, um. So, yeah, so we aggregate that data, we analyze it, and then we give it to the property managers so that they can figure out what they're doing this quarter or this week or this year to optimize their. 00:14:57 - B Is the, like the biggest KPI of all for those management companies saying are occupancy rates, is that a huge thing that you're helping them have great occupancy rates? 00:15:06 - C Yeah, I mean, even further than that. It comes down

to noi. Net operatingh. 00:15:09 - B Really all the way to Net noi soe. 00:15:11 - C Yep. So you're. Yeah. Occupancy rates. Absolutely. 00:15:14 - C Drive that. Um. Yeah, satisfaction drives that. If you have great reviews on your property, everyone wants to live there. Right. 00:15:21 - C Drive higher Noi. 00:15:22 - B Yeah. I think I told you when I first got affiliated with you, which was at the very beginning, that I invested in this property around Phoenix and Scottsdale. And the Highway 101 was interesting. They across the street was Phoenix. The other side of the street was Scottsdale. 00:15:40 - B So they built it on the Scottsdale side of the street. And that alone. Just saying that in apartment dwellers, a young, single, upwardly mobile professional saying, I live in Scottsdale. They wanted to say that. So that's like a marketing thing. 00:15:58 - B And that's something that was just interesting about how important it is when these young professionals say where am I going to live? That when they look up a multi family residence or a multi apartment that they're saying oh it's in Scottsdale. What are the radtings? What do the people say that live there? Do they like it? And that's what you help lift all that uprigh that yeah, that's cool. And it affects the profitability of that complex. 00:16:23 - C Totally. 00:16:24 - A Going back to like the founding story of opinion. How did it like come to be? Because you mentioned at the very beginning you had multiple co founderseah. That's pretty unique in itself. Usually you don't have like three, four, five people along the story of company coming in and co founding it. So start from the very beginning. 00:16:41 - A How, how did it start? Because 2017 you said. Yeah, so take us back to 2017. 00:16:48 - C Technically started like just dabbling in 2016 but 17, you know, it was more of an idea that like got put together and um. Yeah. And basically. Anyways, my college roommate, his name is Morgan, um, he uh, he was working for Dealer Socket like up there, you know, kind of the point of the mountaine. Well, I guess like just right there in Draper. 00:17:05 - C Yeah. And he was a CSM for them just working with dealerships and just hated his job. So he. So one day he called me just kind of defeated and I, you know, I think he d probably had a bad day on talking to some dealer owner or something like that and just was like man, I just, I can't do this anymore. You know? 00:17:25 - C And, and so I was like, well, you know, I think this is largely just to like get him feeling a little better. But I was like, give me an idea, let's do it. You know. And he was like, well, I don't know. I'm like, I am not getting off the phone until you give me an idea of like what we're gonna do. 00:17:41 - C And he's like, well, you know, I was, I was working with a dealership who was like trying to drive more reviews. So he had set up an automation within dealer socket to ask for a review and just send them the link, uh, out of dealerockket. So that's. He's like, yeah, but he's super janky. And the way they were doing it like the, the guy was really specific about I think, I think we do it like way better. 00:18:01 - C And um, and so I said okay, I'll call you back. So 30 minutes later I u called him back and I had built out of a bunch of WordPress pages and I Was working with um, a texting component at the time. And I built a form that you could put information in and it would send a text and an email to a person to ask for a review. Yeah, he's like oh, this's great, you know. And, and uh, so anyways, I um, uh, I went out and started just calling some people that I knew and trying to see, hey, you know, can this work? 00:18:30 - C And uh, you guys know Ryan Grover? He owns a help cloud over there. Um, yeah, they, they do, uh, they're off of, they're right over here actually, um, in Orum. But they uh, he was a first customer, you know, and uh, and he still uses our software to this day. But um, yeah, we ended up u turning on reviews for him and got him like hundreds of reviews in the first 30 days. And he's like man, this is incredible. 00:18:54 - C Right? And so uh, so that's how we started. Uh, at the same time I was running a company that did like u skincare and supplements and stuff like that online. And so it was uh, um, so it wasn't like the time for me to just like start a new startup. Right. Um, and at the same time we had Alex, uh, who had kind of called me and was like, hey, I need to uh. 00:19:14 - C He's like I'm looking for something different, I want to go sell. And so I was like, well, we've kind of got this half baked software that we were maybe doing a thousand bucks a month in revenue and u. So Alex is like, well, I want to see it. Don'give me a shot, you know. 00:19:27 - A And so was your buddy from Dealer Socket like a technical guy? 00:19:31 - C Yeah, was. 00:19:32 - A He built the software. 00:19:34 - C So. Yeah, so we built it. So I built the first version of it. Oh, you just in WordPress. And like, I mean it wasn't really like built. 00:19:41 - C Right. It was cobbled together. 00:19:42 - B Some free stuff. 00:19:43 - C Yeah, just a bunch of stuff like put together. Yeah, maybe cost me 50 bucks a month to like run all the stuff they were doing. But you could just duplicate the pages for all of these different clients. But once they had a client they had to actually put it in the form, hit submit and that would ask for the reviews. And so, um, so as we showed it to Alex, Alex was like, hey, this is great. 00:20:02 - C And we didn't really hear from him for like a week. And then he calls me, he's like, hey, how do I take a credit card? I'm like, well I don't know, you got to put it together and figure it out. Because we were like Doing paper checks. And like, you know, we hadn't really figured it out. And, um, he's like, no, no, I need to take a credit card. 00:20:18 - C Like right now I'm just sold one. Oh, wow. So the three of us

started running with this. Alex was selling, Morgan was doing fulfillment. And I was kind of checking in with these guys and. 00:20:30 - C And as we started to grow in revenue, I realized, hey, we. We need like a CEOah. Need someone who can come in and really run this thing. And so, uh, just. And I had known each other for a while. 00:20:39 - C He had just left degrd. 00:20:41 - A So at this point, there was three of you. And then now you're talking to Justin. 00:20:44 - C Yeah. 00:20:45 - B And that's Justin Bingham. Justin, who we're go goingna talk about in a little bit. 00:20:48 - C A little bit more. 00:20:48 - B Okay. 00:20:49 - C And so, you know, I went to Justin and I was like, hey, u any chance you want to go run a startup? And he was like, maybe like, what do you got? You know? And so kind of showed it to him and he did the same thing. He went out business to business of business. He was trying to figure out, talk to a bunch of friends and everything like that. And he comes back, he's like, all right, I'll do it. 00:21:09 - B And I'm one of the guys he talked to. 00:21:10 - C Yeah. 00:21:10 - B I don't know if you know that. 00:21:11 - C Yeah. 00:21:12 - A Is that how you guys got connected? 00:21:13 - B Yes. I remember distinctly Justin and we met at the Starbucks by University of Mollin Oryum and just sat down in there and he was saying, should I do this? Is this something I should do? And all that because he was coming off a degree with David Blake and he. And so. And of course my answer was yes, yes, yes. 00:21:35 - C So, yeah, Justin came on board probably mid, um, mid to late 2017. And uh, we ran it, just four of us for about a year. Um, ended up raising some, uh, like our first. 00:21:49 - B Yeah. And before that, just to let you know, I just. I'm gon toa say cause the roots a little bit. A Star Ignition boot camp attendee was also slightly working with you guys a little bit, I think on it. That came to Star Ignition Boot Camp independently. 00:22:01 - B Justin took me sign out. Oh, that sounds like the company this other guy was dabbling in a little bit too. So that was the connection too. And that could lead to an interesting story too on that. But that's just so fascinating. 00:22:14 - B Those early days and I met you through Justin. 00:22:17 - C Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we ended up. Yeah, we ended up just like running for about a year, raised a little Bit of capital, which was great. We raised 750,000 and that put us on track for the next couple years ago. Wow. 00:22:32 - C So, um, yeah. And then a couple years in we were selling to salons, spas, medical offices, chiropractice. 00:22:39 - A Yeah, funny story. I used it at Dev Mountain for like Dev Mountain. 00:22:42 - C Justin. 00:22:43 - A Justin got me to sign up and use Suc. 00:22:45 - C Pay sucker. 00:22:46 - A No, and I think you guys, I think right when we started, like about six months later, you kind of hyper focused on like the multifamilying and that, that's maybe kind of a path I want to go down. Like, how did you realize, okay, you were doing all these different verticals and you're like, okay, this is where we want to go. Because I feel like that's when the company started taking off really well. 00:23:08 - B Totallyah. So multifamily still like 70 plus percent of your customer base, right? Something like that. 00:23:13 - C 95. 00:23:14 - B 95 now. 00:23:15 - C 95. 00:23:15 - A 95%. 00:23:16 - C So. So a couple years in U. I mean we had Marrrymaid'uh, like cleaning service. We had the whole franchise of them. We did sport clips, haircuts, which, you know, we had the whole franchise. 00:23:27 - C We were authorized to sell therefore a bit. Um, and uh, anyway, so we ended up uh, like kind of servicing all these service customers and um, Jed Milburn is that name sound familiar? Up in Salt Lake U. Milburn and company Sounds familiar. And so anyways, big real estate guy. Uh, Justin knew him somehow. 00:23:47 - C He knew everybody somehow. Right. And uh, and he's like, hey, our apartment reviews suck. They are so bad. And he's like, do you think it would work for that? 00:23:56 - C And uh, Justin's like, well, we can try it. So he said I'm going to connect you with my manager, uh, there, amc, uh, Property Consultants. Still a client of ours today. But uh, we went met with uh, Jennifer over at AMC and we said hey, we want to do this. And she said that'll never work. 00:24:12 - C Uh, but maybe. And um, so we turned the software on for one Property of Jed and we got 30 reviews in 24 hours. 00:24:20 - A Yeah. 00:24:21 - C And she called us and said I need this in all of my properties. And so come down meet, let's figure out a price point. Thereuse we were working with Jed specifically, uh, like on pricing and everything like that before. And so uh, that is how we started. We didn't know at the time that AMC was the third largest in the nation, uh, for property management. 00:24:40 - B Wow. 00:24:40 - A How long did it take you to roll out to all of their properties? 00:24:43 - C Oh, we're still doing it, yeah, yeah, we have, yeah, they have uh, what, six, seven hundred properties and we probably have, I mean we have a lot of them now. 00:24:51 - A Okay. So you kind of started throwing up spaghetti on the wall, seeing where you could grab some land and get customers and get traction. 00:24:58 - C And this is actually advice from your dad. U was, I don't know if you remember this. We were at the mall. We were sitting there in the food court of the mall and you said you should go sell 5, 5 companies in all these different areas and figure out which one like really resonates like back. And so we had done, I mean up to that point like on our service based customer we were a million million a half an ARR. 00:25:19 - C Um and we were on our way and we had a whole sales team like churning that we were, we were growing um, by almost 100k a month at that point. And then this property management side came in and um, our

biggest problem is that we, we went to market with. We're going to automate the process of getting you reviews and that's a lot of integrations. Right. Especially with this spa uses this CRM and this uses this. 00:25:44 - C I mean because it's pretty fragmented on the CRM side. So we looked at property management and uh, my, my background being finance marketing. Right. So I'a a master'sgree in finance. And so I was looking at the numbers and going well these properties are way more lucrative like on, on a ch perspective than, than our service based clients. 00:26:02 - C And so uh, we just. 00:26:04 - B So basically what it is is you need. It was a little bit of a red ocean in trying to cover all SMBs, small and medium businesses. 00:26:12 - C Totally. 00:26:12 - B Okay. A lot of companies coming in to do that. And so you wanted to sharpen your competitive angle by hyper focusing on a vertical and you need to go test which vertical literally had the most hair on fire use Case plus was the easiest and best for you to make a profit on servicing, right? 00:26:31 - C Totally. 00:26:32 - B And that's what you did and then you discovered that and found it. That's the process that you go through. They call it split the market. In other words, if you are in something where there's a lot of general players, you can hyper focus and split the market up into a hyper focus category and do really well. And the opinion is the embodiment of that principle. 00:26:53 - C Totally. 00:26:54 - A Yeah. 00:26:54 - C So yeah, there's two things. When you have a horizontal strategy and you're trying to get in all these different businesses, there's all like, even the way that you speak to those customers can be different from a salon to a crossf. How they think about how they address their. They're users. Right. 00:27:09 - C Because some are like, oh, there are athletes and some there are, there are patients and some, you know, their customers. Some, you know. So you've got like all of these different things in. When you have a horizontal strategy, when you really go vertical specific, uh, they call it the riches or in the niches. 00:27:26 - B Right. 00:27:27 - C So. And that's exactly what we did. And so that changed our entire strategy from okay, we're going to sell to everyone to we are just going to sell to property management Management. We found an investor who was specific to property management, RET Ventures that are up in Park City. 00:27:43 - B Park City, Yeah, I remember that. 00:27:44 - C Know. And now they're, you know, a couple hundred million dollar fund. And so we raise, we raised money from them. But the unique piece about that is that their LPs or their investors are property management companies. So they're eating their own dog food a little bit. 00:28:00 - A So they like that. Yeah. 00:28:01 - C Oh yeahly. 00:28:02 - A So they're just happy to implement it in all their property. 00:28:05 - C Yeah, absolute. Absolutely. So a third of our business right

now are from our LP connections. 00:28:11 - A Wow. 00:28:11 - C Um, and because yeah, they, they go, hey, invest in us. We'll invest in software companies that'll raise the valuation of the capital you just put into us. And it's just like this big loop back and forth. 00:28:22 - A That's amazing. That's amazing strategy. So you felt like you could leave behind every other vertical and hyper focus. What year was that that you guys hyper focused on multifamily residential like complexes? 00:28:37 - C It was 2019. It was right before COVID Okay, yeah. Oh, right before COVID Yeah, about six months a year out ofe. 00:28:45 - A So when did you raise that money. 00:28:46 - C From ret so beginning of 2019. 00:28:49 - A 2019. 00:28:50 - B Y and I remember some of the. Tyler, I'm not sure if you're fully aware of this, but I. All this time I'm on their advisory board. 00:28:57 - C Yeah. 00:28:57 - B And probably the senior advisor that helped you coordinate the advisor board, if I remember right. And so we were having these advisorsory board meetings and then what really happened is sit down with Justin and Devin and we talked about you need to now focus on your performance and really kind of engineer your sales and revenue traction and show this 10% month over month growth so that you can be on the driver's seat for the next investor. Right. And that's what you guys did and you guys started nailing it. It was awesome. 00:29:25 - A Well, I like the strategy of hyper focusing on the multifamily too because it was like it kind of differentiated you. Because I do feel like even today and probably even five years ago or seven years ago, you know, there's a lot of technology companies or software companies that were doing this. It was kind of the hot market at the time, which was like this feedback loop and this like review, you know, categorizing and you know, this SMS or email campaign to get clients to give feedback. Right. And you know, even in the day where my company before was using it and utilizing it and so it's kind of. 00:29:59 - A You weren't trying to serve all masters. It was like, okay, yeah, let s. 00:30:03 - B Let's deep and you can be the dominant player. But what's also the point I was making too was this, that you also then said, hey, we want to be good entrepreneurs and a great business independent of the vertical we chose or even the market we're in. And you started also then managing the company really properly and getting great traction and it put you in the driver's seat and it was really awesome to see you're not just focusing. Okay, here's our product. We're hyper focused on this vertical but we also know how the games'played because you're a highly scalable venture and this is a principle for the listeners and viewers. 00:30:36 - B A highly scalable venture is probably going to need external capital to fuel the growth. 00:30:41 - C Yep. 00:30:41 - B And that's what you guys went through that period. But to land that fuel, to get that

fuel, you have to paint a really good financial picture. It's. It's just not, hey, you got to trust me and believe me, it's going to happen. You got to show you've got trajectory that they can believe in and that's what you guys did a really good job on. 00:31:01 - C Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Coming from the outside. Yeah. 00:31:05 - C And you were a big help along the way. I mean even, even our financial models were, I mean source I think from you with Mark Elder. Yeaheaheah. So I mean he's the base of the model that I ran our business on, at least on the finance side from up until 2022. 00:31:23 - A Did you run a lot of those, those inner kind of financial workings and making sure all your ratios were right and expenses and you know, revenues were on track on the projections. 00:31:34 - C We didn't have a finance guy until that was beginning last year. Yeah, yeah. So just a really u. 00:31:40 - B You know, I know every founder feels, oh man, this is, it's chaotic, it's crazy. But literally you guys were doing really a lot of good things. And you were really managed well. Yeah. 00:31:51 - C I appreciate that. 00:31:52 - A Yeah. I'm just impressed by your financial prowess. 00:31:55 - B Because like hey's a master in financing sale. 00:31:57 - C Oh yeah, that's right. So you were comfortable in ran a lot of models. Yeah. It specifically in venture too. So that was like the emphasis on my program up the U soah. 00:32:06 - C A lot of financial models, a lot of cap table like a lot of that stuff. 00:32:10 - A Give the viewers and listeners a little bit of strategy or tips because I'm constantly getting in front of like budding entrepreneurs and speaking to newbies and people who are trying to get into entrepreneurship and even people who have their ideas and you know, are actually trying to get trickles of revenue coming into their businesses. And I constantly tell them like you have to be financially aware. Like you literally cannot be an entrepreneur and run a business without having basic. 00:32:36 - B It's one of the hallmarks of what we teach. 00:32:38 - C Yeah. 00:32:38 - B You have to have basic business finance. Yeah. If you're going to be CEO or a co founder and have a major role, you gotta understand business finance to some degree. 00:32:45 - A But now even myself though, I get befuddled sometimes when it gets to very complex models and understanding the inner workings of like this dynamic workbook and this whole financial thing that's been built. You know, it's hard for me to get in there super deep. But I do feel like I do have the basic necessity that an entrepreneur needs to financially be aware. What, what like what do you, what tip do you give to the financial. To the entrepreneur who's maybe not super financially minded. 00:33:15 - C Yeah. 00:33:15 - A And is maybe a salesperson or someone who can go and make and generate business but doesn't have that financial awareness. What? 00:33:24 - C Yeah. And some of the principles that like I have used on the finance side I think are different than some other entrepreneurs. Right. Um. But uh, the biggest one for me is always knowing when you're um. 00:33:36 - C Cash flow positivity date isnna be. 00:33:38 - A Yeah. 00:33:38 - C And if you don't have one, you're in trouble. 00:33:40 - A You mean, you mean like that, that J curve? 00:33:42 - C Yeah. Well. And even like where your expenses are going to match your. Your income. 00:33:46 - A Yeah. 00:33:46 - C Right. And so if that date never moves. Right. Like let's say It's September of 26th of next year. Right. 00:33:52 - C Yeah. And then the next month you run the model. It's now in October and now in November. It's not real. 00:33:57 - A Yeah. 00:33:58 - C And so you've got to manage towards that date. Uh, every time we raise capital, um, we have been hyper focus on making sure that our modeling Is correct. On our hires. Typically your, your uh, um, your headcounts, where your expense comes from. 00:34:10 - A Yeah. Your biggest expenses. 00:34:11 - C Hri. Yeah. And so especially the software side. Right. Like your, your big, your biggest, biggest expense is there. 00:34:17 - C And so what we would do is every time we raise money and the principles that we try to live by are for every dollar that we raise, we're getting a dollar in ARR. Right. And that's very, very, very hard to do. But we have constantly done that. 00:34:31 - A Over the time that you're spending the dollar you raise that you're matching that with a dollar of ar. 00:34:35 - C A dollar an ar. Yeah. 00:34:36 - A That's a great. 00:34:37 - C So up until our last round of funding, um, we had uh, yeah, that was the principal that we had, which was every dollar of raised capital becomes a dollar of ARR. That's great rule. And so a lot of that you're investing in sales. 00:34:50 - A Yeah. 00:34:50 - C Right. Or you're investing in something that's going to give you some sort of return there. Um, don't squander your capital on stupid stuff. Don't go by bean bag chairs and balloon animals and like all this other stuff's a lot of like software companies, like we want to be the cool place to work. And it's like you will find people who want to work for you. 00:35:05 - A Hey, I seen your new offices. I saw the picture on LinkedIn. I saw the ribbon cutting that this guy and you posted on LinkedIn. 00:35:12 - C Blood, sweat and tears for that. 00:35:14 - B But the new office, and I'm just going to share this, they're doing it the right way. It's. They just got into that kind of office and they're getting it ear. They're getting it at a killer rate. 00:35:26 - A Ye. 00:35:26 - B Because of the commercial office space situation. Right. You guys are not going out and wildly spending on office space. You're actually getting a killer deal. 00:35:34 - A We'll make sure Jordan puts that picture from LinkedIn on the podcast somewhere so the viewers can see it because it's a cool picture. 00:35:40 - C So some other

advice like on the finance side is, um, is always run your model to break even so you're never raising in a position of desperation on your next. So treat your. Treat your capital raise as if you're never raising another dollar. Yeah. So if you're raising a million dollars. 00:35:55 - A Well, you have to show projections that you are going to get to profitability at some point with every raise. 00:36:00 - C With every raise. So a lot of people are, are saying, okay, Well I raised 5 million bucks. Right. But over the next five years, I'm actually going to lose 10. So it puts you in a situation where you've got to go raise another $5 million, uh, to be able to continue on. 00:36:15 - C And the problem that becomes is when you're negotiating with a venture group, uh, you're negotiating, uh, from a position of desperation. 00:36:24 - B Yes. 00:36:24 - C And if. And, but if you're at break even, which we have never raised money until we were at break even. Wow. Ever. 00:36:30 - A So you're literally getting the dollars to pour gasoline on the fire. That's already go. Yeah. To play catch up. 00:36:37 - C Because in that position, let's say the market turns, which it did. 00:36:40 - A Yeah. 00:36:40 - C Right. Or the, uh, or you're not getting the terms that you want. You want someone who wants, you know, the participation. And I like all this other stuff. You're just not getting the terms you want. 00:36:48 - C You don't have to take the deal because you're not in a position of desperation. 00:36:51 - B Yes, exactly. 00:36:52 - C And so these are principles I think everyone needs to live by is like, for every dollar, you raise a dollar of arrr and always run your model to break even. 00:37:00 - B So I hope the viewers and listeners are paying attention. You want to go in raising money where you're in a position of strength, EMP power, or at least stability, and not in desperation. So also, that means you don't start three weeks before you're running out of cash. If you want to have a problem or you want to get hosed, do that. 00:37:18 - C Yeah. Our last raise took us seven months. Yeah. And I think that's probably about average when you're doing a series A. Yeah. 00:37:28 - B And you like when you have that strength and you start early, you're go going toa get multiple term sheets and you're gonna have multiple interested parties, and that's how you get the best deals. 00:37:36 - C Yep. Yeah. I was at a summit this u the last couple of days too, up in Scottsdale. What down is Scottsale, I guess. And, um. 00:37:44 - C Yeah. 00:37:44 - A Where it's cool to live in a multifamily complex. 00:37:47 - C Yes. Across the street. Across the street from Phoenix. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, they are talking about right now how it used to be revenue growth was like the biggest driver of value, and now it's grr. 00:38:00 - C Gross revenue retention rates. Right. And so get your grr there, even if it'to sacrifice on the growth side because you're giving a lot more attention to your customers. Um, your, your retention rates right now are more important than anything. 00:38:12 - A Yeah. Churn is the enemy. 00:38:14 - B We like to say that the great symptom that tells you you've got a problem is churn. Yeah, too much churn and you know something major is broken somewhere, you got to fix it before you do anything else. 00:38:26 - A How has your churn been over the life cycle of opinion? Has it been pretty good? 00:38:30 - C Yeah. Yeah. We have a 92% retention and our net revenue retention rates are in the 130s. 00:38:38 - A Ye. 00:38:38 - C So yeah, I mean we have really hyper focused and continue to hyper focus just on the, on the customer journey and making sure that the customers'having a really good, really good experience with. 00:38:49 - A So I want to go back because I do want to loop Justin into this whole story here and But I want to go back to your thinking at the founding of why you thought I need a CEO and why you or one of the partners involved at that time couldn't have stepped up into that role. Like take me through that thinking and the reasoning behind that for a second and then why was Justin the one to fill those shoes in the early stages of. Of opinion? 00:39:16 - C I think when you look at at at least what we needed, I needed someone who was really confident. Right. And Justin most confident guy know. And so. And I was true. 00:39:27 - C Yes. I was very lucky to actually kind of get his eye on and even get any interest from him because I candidly thought like there's no chance. Right. And you know, not talking about my other partners, they're just not the eternal. 00:39:41 - A Optimist that not to too your horn here but you're pretty confident, capable, good looking and energetic so why not you? 00:39:49 - C Well, uh, because my other business was doing, doing well so. 00:39:54 - A And so you didn't want to step away and be distracted by opinion at the very beginning. 00:39:58 - C Yeah. I mean m. I'm not going to leave a company that's doing, you know, 8 million bucks in revenue a year to go to a startup. 00:40:04 - A Yeah. 00:40:05 - C You know, and so. And hindsight, uh, you know'I'm glad for the way that, that we did it. Right. But I didn't know. You never know. 00:40:12 - A Yeah. 00:40:12 - C Right. And so this other one's you know, paying me. I had partners over there that were doing stuff too. So I couldn't leave them high and dry to kind of come do this other thing. And so Justin seemed like a good fit. 00:40:21 - C He also seemed um, a lot of entrepreneurs like kind of going back to like this like equity or salary. Uh, he was one that didn't need a salary. Ye in beginning either. Like it was a. Was a leader. 00:40:32 - C He had his financial situation. Was u taken care of. Yeah. Was. It was okay at the time. 00:40:36 - C Right. Um. 00:40:38 - B ###In Justin's a doer. He get stuff done and he's analytical but also competent enough to trust his gut and do stuff. I mean, he just, he

gets things done. I mean he's attracted. It was a great fit between you and him and the rest of the team. 00:40:56 - C Yeah, yeah. I'm much more of like a data driven person. He is much more like an optimist and just relentless. I'm going toa sell this deal. I'm going to get this client. 00:41:07 - B You know, there's a magic e called enthusiasm. And a lot of entrepreneurs need to understand somebody on your founding team needs to be that person who radiates enthusiasm. People buy customers, buy investors by employees you're trying to recruit by enthusiasm. 00:41:23 - C Yeah, totally. 00:41:24 - B Yeah. 00:41:25 - A And so Justin was then appointed to be the CEO and did obviously a very great job. Got to you guys to where you were all the way up until this last year of his passing. And maybe this is a great time to share that story just real quick with the viewers so they understand that your partner has. 00:41:39 - B This is where it's going to get a little tender. 00:41:41 - C Yeah, well, because bos of tissues around here or something. 00:41:44 - B So I mean just for the crowd listeners, as Devin shares this and if I get a little choked up or if I just get a little somber, it's just I consider Justin Bingham kind of an entrepreneurial son, to be honest with you. He. Before he got together with you, I mentored him from BYU days to through other things and all this stuff. 00:42:06 - A You met him as a student? 00:42:07 - B Yeah, and just as a young guy and he just took to me and I took to him and I was helping to make life decisions before he decided on opinion and how he was doing, his career and all that. And he's just. I just really liked him. He's a great guy and I miss him a lot. When you tell your story and what happened and all that, I just cannot believe it's still. 00:42:29 - B I'm still in shock. 00:42:29 - A Well, let me set the stage just a little bit here because for everybody listening and watching, Justin tragically passed away last October. Right. While he was canyoneering in Zions'park I don't know the full details, but basically he was cannone airering or repppelling and the gear gave away and he fell right? Correct. 00:42:50 - B Super experienced at it. He's an extreme sports kind of guy. He even challenged me one time. 00:42:57 - C Yeah, we lost very hard. 00:43:02 - A What was that in pickleball? 00:43:04 - B Weren't you. 00:43:05 - A We play with you, didn t we? 00:43:06 - B It's a legendary story around the opinion office, I think. But this goes back to also another great advisor who was a good friend of the company and all that was Warren Osborne, who tragically also died of als. So back in the day, you and Justin, Warren and I would be in meetings together and figuring out the company. And then one day, Justin and Warren, who were both athletic and little old me, they say, even though we haven't played pickleball, we could whoop you. And I go, I'PLAYED for a lot of years. 00:43:35 - B Are you sure about that? We played tennis, we're good at it. They said, okay, great. So Anyway, we did $1 bet and we set up the game and Nolan came with me, your brother in law. And so Nolan and I played those two and it was over 100 bucks. And so I think we said best of three. 00:43:53 - B So we win the first game, they didn't like it. You win the second game, they didn't like it. They said best of five. So we won the third game. They go, okay, best of seven. 00:44:01 - B So then we win the fourth game and they're realizing maybe you need to know a little something about a sport before you challenge people. And then they said, you know what? We get one or dollar. Our wives are over there, why don't you play our wives? And the wives beat them in two games. Oh, go diffic SM Adjustin did not like that for the next few years he wanted a rematch. 00:44:25 - C At every moment would bring up a rematch. 00:44:27 - B But go ahead, tell the story. Justin and your relationship with him and all that. 00:44:30 - C So yeah, I mean, and you kind of touched on it, but I mean, that guy lived his life at a million miles an hour. Yeah, Always. Right. And he was always doing something. He was just, you know, speed flying, you know, climbing, you know, doing trips, extreme sports, backflips off the cliffs, like, and so every year he would go down for his birthday and do. 00:44:52 - C Which is on the 5th of October and he would do a canyon. 00:44:55 - A Oh, that was like an annual thing that he always did. 00:44:57 - C Yeah, I did not know so u and I think he was getting a little pressure for his wife to kind of slow down. Um, and you know, also the friends. 00:45:05 - B That are like, now you guys are getting over 40. 00:45:07 - C Yeah. And, and they're just like, you know, and a lot of friends are like, I can't make it anymore. And you know, and we got kids and life and all this other stuff. And so, um, so he even told me, he's like, hey, this is like it'probably the last year I'm going to do it, you know. And um. 00:45:22 - C And yeah, he ended uph doing a two day trip. Um, and on the last rappel down is about a 300 foot repppel. 270, 280 foot repppel. Um, yeah, he got down about 70ft, um, and the gear failed on him. He, he had a device they kind of the rope kind of wraps through it a couple times. 00:45:45 - C Yeah. And one of the wraps popped off and you know, tried to get it back on and just couldn't. So yeah, he fell about 200ft. Yeah. Pass away there at the. 00:45:59 - C I think they actually got him out. I'm not sure if it, you know, if you passed away right there at the foot of the cliff or after they l flighted him out but. But yeah, that was not a call I thought I would ever, ever get, especially from him. 00:46:15 - B Someone's so experie experiencecd happened on a Saturday and Monday morning I woke up and had a text about it and I go, what in the world? Yeah, I remember then I called you and I said, is this real? Tell me this is not real. 00:46:29 - A I didn't believe it, John. 00:46:30

- B I'm still dealing with it, but it's real. And then I said, I'm here, whatever you need. But I just, it just was a shocking yeah, such, I mean, because as Lindsay, his wife, said to me, he's just, you know, bigger than life type of personality kind of guy. 00:46:43 - A It was just crazy because you and Justin are investors in our venture fund and we had just gone through all of that. I remember our lunch at Costa Vita telling you about the fund and you and Justin just go, we're in. Whatever it is, we're in. It's like it was so crazy that, you know, fast forward two, three weeks and I get that text and it was just utterly sure. 00:47:06 - B What was so satisfying in 2024, in the summer to the fall, is you and Justin, after having been with you for all those years, so many young entrepreneurs, I say here's how it can work and what's going to happen and someday you're going to receive the fruits of your labors and you're going to have life changing experiences and your family's going toa be secure and it's going to be amazing. And you guys had just realized finally all of that dream and congratulations to you on that, but also to Justin and his family and then to have Justin right as he literally reach the summit of that experience and then for him to be taken is just, just it's not fair. It's not the way life is s supposed to go and all that. And we feel for his wife and family so much. And for you, I mean, he was your friend and shoulder to shoulder for years. 00:47:55 - B So condolences to the whole team still. And I'm still got a spirit of sadness around it. So I also. 00:48:04 - A Sorry, I just tipped over a drink here. But I also just remember interacting with your team at the funeral and going around and just how sad they were and how close they were. It just shows the type of leader that Justin was. He literally was like best friends with even the lowest person at opinion or the lowest person on the street. Honestly, that's just Justin. 00:48:31 - A And so it was just, again, just so shocking. And condolences. 00:48:35 - B I want to say this too. He treated me with such respect as an older guy. And after you guys and you. 00:48:40 - C Yeah. 00:48:41 - A What did you think of John the first time you met him Through Justin? But like, who'this guy Justin? 00:48:45 - B You know, like the fun is thing was when Jin, Devin were funnest. The most fun thing was when Devin and Justin say, hey, John, can you come right over right to our office? We got to talk about something right now. I'd zoom over there and you guys would be so respectful and nice and then you'd ask some questions and we'd talk about what we're going to do. And I just. It was very rewarding. 00:49:04 - B I mean, you guys are one of my favorite founding teams I've ever invested in or been a part of or been advisor of and just. And mostly because you're super strong, but you're also teachable and listen to advice and you take out of it and take action. It was just such a great experience and Justin was a huge part of that. And it's super fun even. And you're a huge part of it. 00:49:27 - B I just really impressed. I guess I'll stop showering you with all that. But it's just I miss Justin and you if Justin, if you're somewhere listening, we love you. Yeah. 00:49:38 - C Yeah. I think, man, I miss that guy every day. 00:49:42 - A Yeah. 00:49:42 - C Every single day. And I didn't. I mean, we were like, close, right? 00:49:47 - A Yeah. I mean, building a company with something. 00:49:49 - C Your brothers like, literally, well, I think that's like, you know, something hard to kind of grasp too. That's like things are fundamentally different about what we're doing. And there's a little bit of comfort for me because in the early days, he and I very much disagreed on a lot of things. Right. But I loved that because it meant that we were getting all the opinions in the roomah. 00:50:12 - C Like, if we always thought the same, you know, it wouldn't have been. 00:50:15 - B Founding teams should not be clones of one another. 00:50:17 - C Yeah, Diversech. 00:50:19 - B There's a principle researched. Founding teams that are diverse outperform homogeneous teams every time. 00:50:27 - A No, go ahead. Keep going. Devin. 00:50:29 - C No, I mean, but every time we would disagree on something or it was never personal ever, but he d. And he'd always end it with, you know, I love you. Right. That sounds so just. 00:50:44 - B Right. 00:50:45 - C Right. But I love you and I'll be fair. Like, you know, there's a lot of times there's like, I don't want to do that. I'm not doing it. I will support you and I will do it, but I don't want to do it, you know, and. 00:50:54 - C But it was. But it was never personal. Things always worked out there. And if I'm honest, like, I'm struggling on. Is it working out now? 00:51:04 - C You know, like, where do I go from here? And there's a little bit of comfort that I was starting to say is the last year he and I have not disagreed on anything. 00:51:13 - A Yeah. 00:51:13 - C Andh. And so that brings me a little comfort of, like, what I'm doing now. I still believe that Justin would be doing sameeah thing. Yeah. And the other day there was a. 00:51:23 - C One of my team members, you know, I was talking about what career look like for you, like, what's your path? Like, what do you want to do? You know? And he starts listing off. Um, hopefully don't get super emotional about this. But he starts. He starts listing off that. He's like, I never want to be a CEO. 00:51:39 - C And he is the chop stor. He's like, he's brilliant. U. I want to be like a president coo. And. 00:51:46 - C And he said, that's the route I want to work my way up. He's got incredible finance background, super smart. The way he thinks about things is awesome. And he said, because you get all these protections from the CEO, like, you don't have to make some of the weird decisions, the investor relations and all this stuff. And I in front of one

of my just started bawling and it was like, you know, and he's like, are you okay? 00:52:09 - A I just made the CEO cry. 00:52:11 - C And I was like. I just like, what you were saying is the exact thing that Justin did for me. Right. He protected me. I hate doing. 00:52:20 - C Yeah. I mean, the investor relations stuff is u. It's fine. It's not my favorite. I am an operator at heart. 00:52:26 - C I want to move the numbers of the business. I want to make decisions that actually make money and actually make change or create retention or that that's what I love doing. Right. And the CEO ends up becoming kind of this intermediary between like investors and the public and some of the sales and getting on, you know, client and. And that stuff I just, I never necessarily wanted to do. 00:52:51 - B Devin, I tell you from the outside looking in and you know, I'm a shareholder and been around this whole time. My opinion of the new CEO of opinion is that you had this thrust on you and you're doing a great job. 00:53:04 - C Yeah. 00:53:05 - A Seems like you're taking the bull by the horn. 00:53:07 - B My check in calls with you, I've only a few and all that. I just feels like, you know've you knew this, it was unexpected and this all fell on you. And I think it's not easy, but you're doing a good job. 00:53:23 - A My last question to wrap this up is when that all happened last year in fall, was it hard on the business or have you guys come out of that or know, like not just financially in revenue and traction, but like the morale and the actual cohesiveness of the employees and just the environment of working at opinion. Like how has it come. How did you come out of it? What's the end result? 00:53:49 - C Yeah, immediately when it happened. Right. Like that Monday morning. I mean shortly I forgot off call with you, I'd tell the whole team. 00:53:57 - A Yeah. 00:53:57 - C And that was the hardest. 00:54:00 - B Probably one of the hardest. Sor I called you before you told the team. I just had to see if it was real or not. 00:54:05 - C Yeah. And everyone thought in that room that we, we were getting bought. Like they all thought that we were getting. 00:54:12 - B That's why you gathered them. 00:54:13 - C That's why we gather them all together. And to watch like their faces just change was just u. I mean it's like heartbreaking. Right. And so, so coming out of that, I mean you get a lot of questions of like where do we go next? 00:54:26 - C What are we doing? Like, and they're like, Devin, like what are we doing? Right. And so, um. So a lot of that was just like playing kind of clean up. There's a lot of media calls like you knowus it made national news and People magazine, all this other stuff. And so um, so the team, you know, saying. 00:54:44 - C And half of them don't really know him all that well because like we've grown by 100% in the last 18 months. Right. Like on our headcount. So. And some of them like don't know him that well. 00:54:53 - C No, obviously who he is and all of that um, and then the other half of the team has, you know. 00:54:58 - A Been with us five years and so probably in tears. 00:55:01 - C Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and so, you know, we kind of just told people, like, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna remain open, but if you need time, you need time off or anything like that. And the way the team kind of rallied around, like. Like pushing through, help finish, you know, and we got to just keep going. 00:55:19 - C And we had a record sales here the end of the year with the biggest Q4 we've ever had. Um, and it makes me so happy. The team bought in. Our EMPs score almost doubled. 00:55:32 - A Yeah. 00:55:32 - C Um, everyone just put their kind of heart and soul into. Into the business. And. And I think in, you know, when you come through kind of a tragedy like this, everyone plays a role, like, in it, whether it's direct or indirect. You know, I am playing a direct role, like with Lindsay. 00:55:48 - C Right. And making sure that, you know, Justin's wife, Lindseay. Justin's wife Lindseay said who she. Yeah, you know, playing a direct role there, saying, okay, how do we manage, like, the shares in the business that he still has? How do we do that kind of stuff? 00:56:01 - B She's got issues got. She's asset rich with the stock, but she's lost her husband's salary. 00:56:07 - C Totally. 00:56:08 - B Yeah. 00:56:08 - C Yeah. Well, yeah, and yeah, we pay whatever. 00:56:11 - B You guys are doing. 00:56:11 - C Right? 00:56:12 - B Yeah, I know you're doing probably some nice things there, but. 00:56:14 - C But, um. But yeah, so we had that where there's like kind of a direct role. Right. And then. But there's a whole bunch of indirect people saying, like, what do we do? 00:56:22 - C Right. And my, uh, I guess advice to them was double down, you know, and so we've come out of that. I mean, it's. We have kind of Justin memorabilia all around our office. He's in our DNA, a kind rem. 00:56:36 - B I kind of told you that. So a few weeks right before this happened, you were imminent to actually get a new office space, and you wanted to get one. And one of the things you did was you said, I'm going to finish this project for Justin and we're going to get a great office space. And I was invited to the ##ing. Grand opening, that office. 00:56:54 - B And I went out there. Things were still really raw. But the word. I think of when I had that experience, being there for that grand opening and ribbon cutting, and you invited me to come stand behind the ribbon and all that, I just felt family. Everybody there felt like a family. 00:57:11 - B Lindsay was there. She was still really Tender. And she probably still is, of course, but I'm just saying I actually felt the reaction was very supportive of you, knowing this was put upon you and what was going on. Know there's a lot of ways things could go after something like this. And I think you guys, for whatever reason, which is a testament to

Justin and you and what you built before it was just almost like perfect the way it had to go to have a great continuation of what you're doing. 00:57:41 - C Yeah. And I know we'probably gotta wrap up here soon, but so right after this happened, you know, I m. I'm on the phone with the board like that very next boarding, and, um, and I found out maybe two, three hours after you passed away, and, uh, the board basically just said, hey, you know, you got toa make it clear that you are like the interim CEO, that you're the place they've got to look for right now. It's going to be a really rough ro on you. And then we'll kind of revisit that. 00:58:09 - C Um, and about a week after that, they basically asked like, hey, do you want this? Like, do you want to do this or should we? Because no one's go going toa fault you if you walk away tomorrow. 00:58:23 - A Yeah. 00:58:23 - C Like, no one's goingna fault you for that. And so it wasn't until probably November that I was kind of serving in this, like, interim capacity and made the conscious decision that, like, I needed to finish this outeah. I mean, because leaving opinion was on the table for me prior to the. No, like after this. I mean, our investors basically said, if you want to walk away, you can. 00:58:52 - C But I, you know, I don't think that bringing someone else in would have been the right thing to do. 00:58:59 - A No way. I think this is completely the right move. 00:59:01 - B Yeah. And you're completely capable. We support you 100%. I do. Speaking on behalf of an outside person looking in. 00:59:09 - B So I think it's great. I think you've got all the skills and talent. 00:59:13 - A So before we wrap it up, where do you go from here? What are you excited about in the future? Like, what's on opinions radar? What's on Devin's radar for the next year? 3, 5. That gets you going, gets you excited, gets you up in the morning. 00:59:29 - C Yeah. I think this event has changed the way that I look at things. Right. I'm a, I'm a hoarder when it comes to, like, security and cash and all that. I just, I. 00:59:40 - C I'm not very, um, flamboyant. 00:59:43 - A Yah. 00:59:43 - C When it comes to that stuff. And so I've, you know, personally spent a little more, you know, a little more money, a little more enjoyment, take the trips, make sure that I'm doing the stuff that I've always kind of said like I'm doing later. I just bought a new house on Monday. Oh, wow. 00:59:57 - A Congrats. 00:59:57 - C Move in tomorrow. So awesome. I mean, doing things like that that I, I don't think I would have normally gone outside my comfort zone and, and extended myself to do stuff like that. Cause I'm, I mean my, my house I live in now that we're moving, I mean it's almost paid off. Right. 01:00:10 - C I can. I'm that type of guy that's like I'm very conservative on that side. And so I think like on a personal level, live in life a little more. Yeah, I never know when's your last. Like that's become abundantly clear to me that like tomorrow could change, um, build the relationships that you have. 01:00:28 - C That relationships are those that I value. 01:00:33 - A A lot more and want to make personally and business. 01:00:35 - C Personally in business. And so those are kind of things that I'm focused on kind of on a personal side. On the, on the business side. It is game time. Yeah, I mean we are, we're growing right now. 01:00:46 - C We're growing another 50% this year. We are hiring like crazy. We'll double our head count again this year. 01:00:52 - A But revenue growth is the goal. 50% jump from last year. 01:00:56 - C Yep. So, um, yeah, I mean we are, we're hiring a lot. We got a big space to be able to do that. We're traveling a ton u with clients. Um, we are for the first time ever looking at acquisitions. 01:01:08 - C Right. And have a war chest with our financing partner to. To be able to do that. And so we're. Things are, things are exciting. 01:01:15 - B It's awesome. 01:01:16 - C Yeah. And so um, yeah, I think up and out, you know, eventually, but. But yeah, we are re in a high growth mode right now. Sell lot of. Selling a lot of accounts, putting on a lot of AR this year and yeah, 2025. 01:01:29 - A Do you feel like it's the year do you think economically the macroon economy and everything's lining up, stars are aligning for you opinion and for what you guys want to accomplish. 01:01:38 - C U. Yeah, I do. There's a lot of excitement in the market. Yeah, there's u. I mean a lot of capital. 01:01:45 - C I mean we're based on like a lot of property sales. Right. So a lot of acquisitions are kind of gearing up to. To sell um, or even to be purchased by other things. You know, we're hoping interest rates come down, which really affects the way that, that our businesses run. 01:01:58 - C Uh, we're pretty excited about that. I mean, you know, when it comes to us, uh, we, we bought a ton of software last year that we implemented. Last year was groundwork, like foundation year. Get your hires in, get the right software in place, don't hack it together. Get the gold standard on stuff, pay a little bit more for the software to get there. 01:02:16 - B I like to say that's the stair step to our listeners and viewers that are entrepreneurs, because the hockey stick curve is not a straight line. It's actually a stair step up. And on the horizontal landing of the stair is where you're doing what you just said. You're setting the stage to go to the next level. And you have to set the table and build the systems and infrastructure to go to that next level. 01:02:36 - B Ca becausee if you try to jump up to that next level without doing what you just said you just did the last year, you will have chaos and things will break. And so what you've done, it sounds like, is you've set the table to have a great 20, 25. 01:02:50 - C When you gott and you got a map, you got to map that stuff out and be aware of it. And so we doesn't just fall in your lap. Yeah, I mean we

grew by u 50% last year. Yeah, but we planned that in 23. Yeah. 01:03:01 - C And we planned some of that in 22 and 23. And now we planned last year we said, okay, we've got to get our, our revenue in place, like our revenue motion in place to be able to there. But we've got to build all these. 01:03:11 - B Kind of foundationsurship's not a whimsical activity where you just spray and pray and get literally science. 01:03:18 - C Yeah. 01:03:19 - A I mean, there's some luck to it, right? 01:03:20 - C You got to timing Tim on that. 01:03:23 - B But actually, again, just like you like to say, Tyler, it's when preparation meets opportunity and that's luck and you're prepared. You can't have the experience you've had of growth the last few years if you didn't prepare for it. It just doesn't fall in your lap. 01:03:39 - A The example I always give is if you're at the Jazz game or the BYU game or any of these sporting events and they're throwing out balls, how do you ensure that you get a ball thrown at you? You have to put yourself in that situation, say, hey, over here, throw me the ball. Rather than folding your arms sitting down the chair. You have to be prepared to get and meet that opportunity. 01:03:57 - B Right. 01:03:57 - A It's same thing in business. So thank you. 01:04:00 - B Deb, how are we doing? 01:04:01 - A Yeah, I think we're almost at time here. I just want to wrap things up and just emphasize to the viewers that Devin's journey really underscores the importance of resilience, community, innovation and stick toivenness like it's a great example to hear from you and the insights that you've dropped on this podcast today. And I know I'm going to embrace a lot of the little tidbits of information that I've heard today, especially about, you know, enjoying life to the fullest. I think all of us can really gain some insight from those comments. 01:04:34 - B I want to give my thanks to Tyler Oay. I just want to say Devin, one more thing. Thanks for doing everything you're doing. Thanks for over the years. Thanks for taking on this role and choosing to continue in that C role with the company. 01:04:47 - B Cause I think it's the perfect choice and I just thanks for opening up on the podcast here today. Just you know a little tender moment to talk about Justin and all that for you and me both. And I just want to thank you and you know we're here for you if you ever need me still like I've always been there. I'm here for as long as you. 01:05:04 - A And Devin's just a stand up guy. He's just a good guy. 01:05:07 - C Yeah. 01:05:07 - A Come be his friendah. 01:05:09 - B They've got a lot of joke openings and if you're in the Utah market, you want to move to Utah and get a job at Opinion, you should be contacting this company because they've done incredible and they're going places even more so. 01:05:20 - C Yeah. So I mean on the you know on my side too than thanks for having me on. 01:05:23 - A Yeah. 01:05:23 - C And you know anything in your guys portfolio companies too. I'm happy to chat with them. Resource. 01:05:29 - B Thanks. 01:05:30 - A That would be awesome. 01:05:30 - B We'll take you up on that. 01:05:31 - A Hey, that benefits you as well being an invest. 01:05:33 - C Absolutely. 01:05:34 - A Okay. 01:05:34 - C Eating my own dog fooded there. 01:05:35 - A I know. 01:05:36 - B Thank you. 01:05:37 - A Thank you. We're signing off. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. Like comment, share, subscribe, hit us up, email us comment. 01:05:44 - A We'll respond and help out and do whatever we can. So thanks for listening.