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Insights on Strategic Partnerships with Jeremy Hanks
5 Plays4 years ago
We're digging into the value and potential pitfalls of strategic partnerships...and we're not talking about choosing your pickleball partner carefully. In the scrappy, DIY world of startups, sometimes the need for leveraged power from an already established brand might seem like a cop-out, but sometimes it's exactly what the doctor ordered and brings things to the next level. To show us what it looks like when a startup lands a strategic partnership with one of the most well-known brand leaders in the market, we're bringing back Jeremy Hanks of Dsco and investor Dalton Wright of Kickstart (a VC firm for startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West) to bring you both sides of a Perfect Pitch. In this episode, we'll talk about:
Jeremy's experience of Nordstrom approaching Dsco for a strategic partnership
What leverage do founders have when negotiating favorable strategic deals?
Details on Jeremy's experience with Dsco's sale & what's next on the horizon
Why Jeremy claims entrepreneurship's "finish line" isn't actually an exited company
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Strategic Partnerships
00:00:00
Speaker
Today, we're digging into the value and potential pitfalls of strategic partnerships.
00:00:04
Speaker
And we're not talking about choosing your pickleball partner carefully here.
00:00:08
Speaker
In the scrappy DIY world of startups, sometimes the need for leveraged power from an already established brand might seem like a cop-out.
00:00:15
Speaker
But sometimes it's exactly what the doctor ordered and brings things to the next level or even save the day.
00:00:21
Speaker
To show us what it looks like when a startup lands a strategic partnership with one of the most well-known brand leaders in the market, we're bringing back Jeremy Hanks from Disco and Dalton Wright of Kickstart to bring you both sides of A Perfect Pitch.
Revisiting Strategic Partnerships with Jeremy and Dalton
00:00:41
Speaker
What is Perfect Pitch?
00:00:42
Speaker
It's a podcast from Kickstart that reveals the minds of both investors and entrepreneurs throughout a startup's journey.
00:00:51
Speaker
I'm your host, Karen Zelnick.
00:00:52
Speaker
Jeremy and Dalton, thank you so much for being here today.
00:00:55
Speaker
Good to be back.
00:00:56
Speaker
We're so happy to have you both back for the second part of your startup journey.
00:01:00
Speaker
We touched on strategic partnerships a little the first time you were with us in Episode 4 of this podcast.
00:01:06
Speaker
But we said then that we needed to have you back to get into this.
00:01:08
Speaker
So welcome.
00:01:09
Speaker
Really excited to talk to you.
How Should Startups Attract Partners?
00:01:12
Speaker
And you are the founder of Disco.
00:01:16
Speaker
We'll have a link to a longer bio and information on Disco in our show notes at kickstartfund.com, as well as Dalton's bio.
00:01:24
Speaker
It's been a few weeks since our last conversation on the show.
00:01:27
Speaker
For those who need a quick refresher, in our last episode, Jeremy walked us through Disco's founding story and some of the early roadblocks that he faced.
00:01:35
Speaker
The company actually faced a near close, but with a flash of brilliance, Jeremy was able to overcome the uphill battle.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's a great startup story.
00:01:42
Speaker
So if you haven't listened, rewind, go back and check it all out.
00:01:46
Speaker
But for today, as I mentioned, we're focusing on strategic partnerships.
00:01:49
Speaker
And Jeremy, you're a bit of a mastermind with that.
00:01:52
Speaker
So how did you first decide to contact Nordstrom and initiate a partnership?
00:01:57
Speaker
So that's an interesting question.
00:02:01
Speaker
I don't know if I would agree that I'm a mastermind.
00:02:03
Speaker
I appreciate the compliment.
00:02:05
Speaker
And maybe this will circle back around to thinking whether I'm a mastermind or not.
00:02:10
Speaker
But the answer to that question is we didn't first contact Nordstrom.
00:02:14
Speaker
They contacted us.
00:02:17
Speaker
I think that when you think about strategic partnerships and companies and entrepreneurship...
00:02:22
Speaker
I wonder if you were to find 100 founders, 100 companies, 100 management teams, and you zoom in on this question of a strategic partner, a make the company partner, I bet you would find that a high number of those, it was exactly what happened with us in Nordstrom.
00:02:41
Speaker
They were the ones that called us, not the other way around.
00:02:45
Speaker
So I wonder if the answer to that question is, is one of the keys to successfully navigate and have a strategic partner be critical in your pathway to success is they're going to come calling you, not the other way around.
Disco's Strategy with Nordstrom
00:03:00
Speaker
So then the better question is, is what can you do such that two things?
00:03:04
Speaker
One, people that can be that make or break strategic partner are going to call you.
00:03:10
Speaker
And I think at the core of that is to be disruptive.
00:03:14
Speaker
And then to be super genuine and honest and transparent.
00:03:17
Speaker
And then two, such that when they do call you, you can actually engage in a win-win, one plus one equals three partnership.
00:03:23
Speaker
But I think it's more that way.
00:03:26
Speaker
For our story, it was that way.
00:03:29
Speaker
Dalton, would you agree with that?
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that.
00:03:33
Speaker
I think that would just make sense that these types of partners have a sense for where they're going and what they're looking for.
00:03:38
Speaker
And when they see it, they can take action on it.
00:03:41
Speaker
I also would say that most startups aren't setting out to usually go down the strategic path when they're raising money.
00:03:47
Speaker
In this case, Jeremy, I think one of the interesting areas where we could take this is just around, what did you do to put the company in the position to have that partnership happen, especially given that we were not in a position of strength at all at that time?
00:04:01
Speaker
I don't think of Disco as being in a position of strength when Nordstrom showed strong interest.
00:04:08
Speaker
I think mostly, it was that we had clarity on a vision for what we wanted the retail supply chain to look like to change into.
00:04:20
Speaker
We aligned with them in that way.
00:04:22
Speaker
But we were as much if not more of the prophet in this new religion as they were.
00:04:29
Speaker
And because of that, we told them no.
00:04:33
Speaker
And so I think it's the courage to have that vision, that North Star, and to see the product market fit and to see the evolution of what you're trying to do with the disruption that your company is based on.
00:04:45
Speaker
And then be willing to tell the strategic partner who is...
00:04:50
Speaker
5, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, a million times more strong than you and your startup and still tell them no.
Vision and Conviction in Partnerships
00:04:59
Speaker
Were there ever times throughout the process that you second-guessed saying no?
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:05:07
Speaker
I still remember the first meeting we had with Nordstrom's attorney.
00:05:11
Speaker
And she says, Okay, I've gone through the DISCO terms of service that I got from your website.
00:05:17
Speaker
Look, we're Nordstrom.
00:05:19
Speaker
We have to use our master services agreement.
00:05:21
Speaker
But I have brought everything from your terms of service into our agreement that I think are material for the business relationship that we're going to have.
00:05:28
Speaker
Let's go from there.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I can say from experience, Disco worked with other strategic partners as well.
00:05:35
Speaker
And it was not nearly that kind of scenario.
00:05:38
Speaker
Nordstrom knew that the biggest risk that they had in selecting a startup is that they would just crush us and smother us.
00:05:47
Speaker
And that one of those ways could be in the commercial agreement and or the investment terms that could really go sideways.
00:05:56
Speaker
I'd like to say that that was part of our North Star was telling a strategic investor, it has to look like this or we won't do it.
00:06:03
Speaker
But Nordstrom, we got super lucky in the fact that they said, we think it should look like this so that we don't mess it all up.
00:06:11
Speaker
And then we use that playbook and that framework every time we had conversations with a strategic partner.
00:06:18
Speaker
When we had someone who would ask for that term, we want all the technology.
00:06:22
Speaker
And it's like, no, look, look, what you're asking is to buy the company.
00:06:25
Speaker
And then look, if
00:06:26
Speaker
If you want to buy the company, we'll have that conversation all day long.
00:06:29
Speaker
We'll talk about it.
00:06:30
Speaker
We were super fortunate because we were able to basically say, well, Nordstrom was our first flagship customer and they're our major investor.
00:06:38
Speaker
And they didn't ask for those terms.
00:06:39
Speaker
And that was a huge benefit.
00:06:41
Speaker
So if they get past the why should we work with them...
00:06:44
Speaker
then for the entrepreneurs, key to working with strategic partners is you cannot allow them to smother you either with how they roll out the technology or how much influence over the roadmap that you give them or legal
Negotiating with Strategic Partners
00:06:57
Speaker
terms.
00:06:57
Speaker
There are several things and you're going to feel like, well, we have to do it.
00:07:01
Speaker
They're going to make the company, they're going to fund the company, and you have to say no to those things or you're basically going to become the walking dead.
00:07:08
Speaker
It sounds like startups have more leverage than they might think that they do.
00:07:12
Speaker
And I'd love your perspective on that, Dalton.
00:07:15
Speaker
What really stood out to me in Jeremy's answer was just that...
00:07:19
Speaker
Where he saw strength was in the strength of his vision and his conviction to hold true to that vision.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so when I said we weren't coming from a position of strength, that was from the perspective of short runway, not a lot of revenue, question marks around repeatability of our model, lacking in traction to feel super confident putting more money in as an investor.
00:07:41
Speaker
And yet what Nordstrom really loved was...
00:07:45
Speaker
There was such clarity around the vision that I think maybe there were people within the organization who needed to see that type of conviction to continue to lean in on the direction that they wanted to take things.
00:07:56
Speaker
And they knew that there was a partner out there that was willing to go fight that fight.
00:07:59
Speaker
And I also think that it also just underscores that there is a certain good fortune at times in successful stories.
00:08:08
Speaker
And the good fortune here is that you had a partner like Nordstrom.
00:08:11
Speaker
It's not just that Nordstrom was uniquely good.
00:08:13
Speaker
I think it was that they were uniquely aligned with what Disco was trying to do.
00:08:18
Speaker
And so it's a lot easier to operate with a higher degree of trust when their reason for engaging in this thing with Disco was to change the way information was transacted across an entire industry, knowing that if they...
00:08:32
Speaker
as Jeremy put it, smothered it or reached too far in controlling it or pulled it into their business, it would handicap it from becoming what it needed to be in order for the industry to evolve.
00:08:44
Speaker
I think that idea of a North Star and sticking with that is such an important takeaway for everyone listening.
00:08:51
Speaker
And it sounds like it's so key in negotiating, not even just with strategic partnerships.
00:08:55
Speaker
We've had other conversations on the podcast about negotiating and the importance of that North Star.
00:09:00
Speaker
Jeremy, in addition to that, do you have any other tips on negotiating favorable strategic deals?
00:09:06
Speaker
What else came into play in addition to that North Star focus?
Challenges in Partnerships
00:09:11
Speaker
Well, first of all,
00:09:13
Speaker
I know many attorneys.
00:09:15
Speaker
I respect and appreciate everything they do.
00:09:18
Speaker
But if you put two attorneys in a room and say, get a deal done, you probably should wait until we've colonized the universe and there's no more longer life on earth.
00:09:28
Speaker
They'll go back and forth over the word and or the word the until the heat death of the universe.
00:09:35
Speaker
You need to work out all of the major pieces of the deal, business to business.
00:09:40
Speaker
And then both sides need to tell their attorneys, go make it happen.
00:09:44
Speaker
Don't allow corporate attorneys to basically have undue influence on these negotiations.
00:09:50
Speaker
Because if you do, you will go sideways.
00:09:53
Speaker
And if you're an entrepreneur and you're a startup, and you don't have legal counsel that is the best of the best of the best... And I can tell you how you know that.
00:10:01
Speaker
You know that by how much they charge you per hour.
00:10:03
Speaker
If it's not $500... Truly, if it's not $500 or more, you don't have the right attorneys...
00:10:11
Speaker
to even be in the same room with strategic investors and large enterprises.
00:10:16
Speaker
So that's a super practical thing.
00:10:18
Speaker
The other one is maybe more strategic.
00:10:20
Speaker
One of the challenges that we ran into with Nordstrom, they didn't want to end up owning enough of Disco so that they had to consolidate financial reporting on their side because it would just make it really complicated
00:10:33
Speaker
Well, their corporate counsel came up with a grand solution such that there could be some proxy shares and different things worked out with me and them.
00:10:40
Speaker
And all of a sudden, it was like, great.
00:10:43
Speaker
They don't own more than 19.9% of the business.
00:10:45
Speaker
We figured that out a way.
00:10:46
Speaker
So it's like that if-then type logic.
00:10:50
Speaker
If you need this in the commercial agreement, well, then this thing over here in the strategic investment agreement... And being able to go through those...
00:10:59
Speaker
in a way that you point out like, you don't realize it, but let's walk through it.
00:11:03
Speaker
If, then, if, then, if, then.
00:11:05
Speaker
And the last one, you're like, basically asking me to sell you the company.
00:11:10
Speaker
That was a very common thing that we landed at.
00:11:13
Speaker
And you said, but how can you ask me to buy the business for just doing a pilot program with us?
00:11:19
Speaker
You're not even paying us any money for the pilot.
00:11:21
Speaker
But if, then, then, then, you know, and then they were like...
00:11:24
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no, no.
00:11:25
Speaker
That's not what we're intended.
00:11:26
Speaker
And now all of a sudden, magically, that term just goes away.
00:11:30
Speaker
Especially when the business folks understood that kind of flow.
00:11:33
Speaker
And then they were able to have a conversation without us even involved with their counsel.
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is so wise.
00:11:39
Speaker
And Dalton, I would love your reaction to that.
00:11:42
Speaker
I really like this concept of if then.
00:11:45
Speaker
The right of first refusal is so key because if they have that, it means it's hard for any other buyer to come along and pick you up because they won't even get engaged in the process if they know that the strategic can just step in and purchase you for the same offer.
00:11:57
Speaker
So it throws cold water on your exit opportunities and
00:12:01
Speaker
It closes the door on other investment opportunities.
00:12:04
Speaker
Another major category is just around exclusivity, exclusivity of services into their segment.
00:12:09
Speaker
And so the more narrowly you can define their segment, the better, because you want to preserve your ability to serve more markets and more customers.
00:12:18
Speaker
The others, I would say, are around roadmap.
00:12:20
Speaker
The tendency with strategic partners is to say yes to everything
00:12:23
Speaker
because you really want to get this deal done, they'll tell you everything they could use.
00:12:27
Speaker
And so you're going down the wild goose chase.
00:12:30
Speaker
So things that you get pulled into building for your strategic partner are not actually relevant to your other customers.
00:12:36
Speaker
And then a final one I would just say is on kind of the sales motion.
00:12:40
Speaker
So if you have a strategic partner and you are selling with them as a channel of sorts,
00:12:44
Speaker
What have you defined in terms of how you actually take that product to market together?
00:12:50
Speaker
And who's responsible to sell it?
00:12:51
Speaker
Who's responsible to bring customers on?
00:12:53
Speaker
That's where I've seen some of the partnerships go sideways.
00:12:57
Speaker
Ask the if-then questions, and then structures terms that support those things.
00:13:02
Speaker
Somebody told me once, if you ever have to go to one of those written agreements to clarify something, especially with Disco to Nordstrom or Disco to Kohl's or where you've got a startup in a really large enterprise flagship organization, something's gone way off the rails.
00:13:19
Speaker
A large enterprise is used to just asking, what does that mean for this thing I'm buying?
00:13:23
Speaker
They're not asking, what does that mean for this strategic partnership?
00:13:27
Speaker
What does that
Jeremy's Post-Disco Plans
00:13:28
Speaker
mean for this company that has its own objectives?
00:13:30
Speaker
But if you get that all out early, you get it on paper, having good counsel, then you get that 100,000-foot alignment such that...
00:13:40
Speaker
inevitably something's going to come up and you don't have to go back to the paper.
00:13:44
Speaker
And you're going to find that you're going to tweak and change as you go because both sides have continued to invest in the partnership.
00:13:50
Speaker
There's been more progress made and you move forward.
00:13:54
Speaker
It's very easy for the business side of these large enterprises to either inadvertently or overtly see a startup as their outsourced dev department.
00:14:07
Speaker
And say, I can't get anything done internally.
00:14:10
Speaker
So we're going to do this deal.
00:14:11
Speaker
And maybe I even get people to invest in it.
00:14:12
Speaker
And we're just going to get them all those things to do.
00:14:14
Speaker
And that's back to the disco way or the highway.
00:14:17
Speaker
You have to have a vision of what are you building for your partners such that it's still broadly addressable to the market and to the problem.
00:14:26
Speaker
Did we build some things just for Nordstrom?
00:14:29
Speaker
Not much at all.
00:14:31
Speaker
Did we change the order of how we rolled stuff out?
00:14:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:34
Speaker
We added invoicing functionality to Disco probably a year and a half before we had planned because that was a deal breaker critical thing for Nordstrom.
00:14:42
Speaker
But we did it in a way that was still broadly applicable to the market.
00:14:47
Speaker
But if you get sideways on that roadmap, especially when you end up with a second and third partner,
00:14:52
Speaker
then you lose your SaaS company, you lose your repeatability.
00:14:56
Speaker
You have become a consultancy with 3 big customers.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's such an important takeaway.
00:15:02
Speaker
That was a big aha moment for me as Dalton and you were talking.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I love, Dalton, the list you gave of right of first refusal or rofer, as we've been saying.
00:15:10
Speaker
For anyone who heard that on the podcast, I was like, what's a rofer?
00:15:12
Speaker
So that's what it is for short.
00:15:14
Speaker
And then it's been so great to have so many tangible takeaways for founders and those listening on this podcast and this episode.
00:15:22
Speaker
And Jeremy, moving tracks a little...
00:15:24
Speaker
Disco was sold in November.
00:15:26
Speaker
I did see the celebration dance that you posted on YouTube.
00:15:29
Speaker
It was fantastic.
00:15:30
Speaker
Tell us how the experience was for you.
00:15:33
Speaker
It was a great outcome.
00:15:35
Speaker
The uniqueness, at least for me, was two things.
00:15:38
Speaker
One, I had stepped aside as the CEO in January of 2020 and put our COO, Vance Checkets, who known for so many years, took over as the CEO.
00:15:52
Speaker
And then two, COVID pandemic hit 60 days later.
00:15:57
Speaker
The benefit, I guess, for this transaction...
00:16:02
Speaker
was that I had already gone through the transition of someone else making decisions that wasn't me.
00:16:10
Speaker
I tried to respect that.
00:16:12
Speaker
When we told the team, Vance was taking over CEO, it's one of the only times in my life I have experienced... You can hear a pin drop and people's jaws are literally on the floor.
00:16:23
Speaker
And then a week later, I left all the Slack channels.
00:16:26
Speaker
So that pulled me back.
00:16:27
Speaker
And that was like this challenging, challenging thing.
00:16:30
Speaker
And then COVID came from a different direction.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:33
Speaker
And Dalton, you got to watch it.
00:16:34
Speaker
Was it exciting for you as the investor?
00:16:36
Speaker
What were your thoughts?
00:16:38
Speaker
My takeaway from this is that Jeremy had a lot of foresight to bring Vance in early because Vance had worked for the company as a couple of years as CEO.
00:16:48
Speaker
Jeremy was the one who made the call, right?
00:16:51
Speaker
So he was in the position to shape how that happened.
00:16:54
Speaker
And I think sometimes entrepreneurs...
00:16:56
Speaker
Because they're so afraid of that happening, they don't actually dictate the terms of how transitions can happen.
00:17:03
Speaker
And so in this case, Jeremy brought in a guy who helped make the business better.
00:17:08
Speaker
And then when he felt the transition was right, was the one who was able to advocate for it and actually bring the board along with the decision and the rest of the company.
00:17:16
Speaker
It requires a great deal of self-awareness and humility to be able to do that.
00:17:21
Speaker
Because sometimes our identities and our egos get so wrapped up in the narratives and the stories that we tell ourselves and the expectations that we put on ourselves that it can be confining and limiting in how we might see a better path forward that's in the best interest of all the shareholders.
00:17:37
Speaker
Jeremy, it's really admirable the way you handled so many aspects of the business.
00:17:43
Speaker
I'm going to just say it.
00:17:43
Speaker
I think you are a mastermind and we're sticking you with the label and have really appreciated having you on this podcast today.
00:17:51
Speaker
We usually end by asking people what's an effective practice that they've implemented.
00:17:56
Speaker
We asked you that last time.
00:17:57
Speaker
So we're not going to make you repeat it.
00:17:59
Speaker
And you had a great answer.
00:18:00
Speaker
I won't spoil it for people who haven't heard it by chance.
00:18:03
Speaker
Go back to episode four and listen.
00:18:05
Speaker
I do want to ask you, now that Disco has been sold and everything, what's next for you?
00:18:11
Speaker
It's a great question.
00:18:12
Speaker
I have a specific answer and a generic answer.
00:18:15
Speaker
So the specific answer is I call it my dantesque sabbatical.
00:18:22
Speaker
I've always wanted to read The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
00:18:27
Speaker
It's an epic poem where Dante is the poet and he's the pilgrim.
00:18:32
Speaker
So the way I explain that, that would be like if George Clooney wrote and directed in a movie starring George Clooney as George Clooney.
00:18:41
Speaker
So this is like Dante in like 1300 something.
00:18:44
Speaker
Well, it's the 700th anniversary of his death this year.
00:18:47
Speaker
So I've gotten sucked into that.
00:18:50
Speaker
I have at least 50 books about the Divine Comedy.
00:18:53
Speaker
And I'm just trying to read some of them.
00:18:56
Speaker
There's no way I'll get to all of them.
00:18:57
Speaker
But I joke that maybe I'll become a Dante scholar.
00:19:00
Speaker
So that's the specific answer.
00:19:02
Speaker
The general answer is a lot of people... This is a big transition period.
00:19:07
Speaker
I've talked to a lot of founders.
00:19:08
Speaker
I've talked to a lot of investors.
00:19:10
Speaker
I've talked to mentors, friends, family.
00:19:12
Speaker
The best advice that I got was don't do nothing, but don't force something.
00:19:18
Speaker
So I don't really know what's next, but I definitely want to see where I flow and follow the path of least resistance, not in a negative way, but in a smart way.
00:19:30
Speaker
What comes?
00:19:31
Speaker
What's the passion?
00:19:32
Speaker
If that's next month, great.
00:19:35
Speaker
If that's 5 years from now, that's perfectly fine too.
00:19:38
Speaker
So
Entrepreneurship and Self-Discovery
00:19:39
Speaker
that's my answer to what's next.
00:19:41
Speaker
We're very excited to see what's next.
00:19:43
Speaker
Dalton's nodding.
00:19:44
Speaker
Dalton, any last words before we wrap up?
00:19:47
Speaker
I like that answer just because it's like an example of what I think a lot of entrepreneurs hope for if they have some success, which is the freedom to be self-actualized.
00:20:00
Speaker
there's no such thing as like this end state of happiness where you get there and all of a sudden it's like, Oh, I exited and now I'm happy.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker
We can, you know, we can just hang it up.
00:20:10
Speaker
It's like, there are new questions, you know, and there are new things to explore and there are new challenges.
00:20:15
Speaker
But what has changed is that you now have more freedom to actually pursue some of these things that you actually now have won the right and the resources to expand, you know, what is now possible.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:29
Speaker
That's a whole other podcast.
00:20:30
Speaker
I just was reading this Wendell Berry book and it's based on farming.
00:20:35
Speaker
Basically, this farmer is just like working his whole life to pay off his farm, which he does.
00:20:42
Speaker
Then his barn burns down.
00:20:43
Speaker
I mean, all these challenges and catastrophes and things happen and he pays off his farm again and everything.
00:20:49
Speaker
And at the end of the day, he's kind of talking to another farmer.
00:20:53
Speaker
He quotes the scripture that
00:20:56
Speaker
Yay, though I walk through the valley, the shadow of the death kind of scripture.
00:20:59
Speaker
And he basically puts it into his framework, which is like, it's not about the farm.
00:21:03
Speaker
It's not about the startup.
00:21:04
Speaker
It's not about the success or the failure.
00:21:07
Speaker
It seems like that's the case.
00:21:09
Speaker
But the highs and lows that you feel have nothing to do with that.
00:21:12
Speaker
It's about you.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's about the farmer, not the farm.
00:21:16
Speaker
I just read that a couple of days ago and I was like, this is talking about entrepreneurship because it's not about the farm.
00:21:23
Speaker
It's about the farmer.
00:21:24
Speaker
And if you can get that straight in your head, which I've struggled with that a lot of time in my life.
00:21:31
Speaker
But if you can keep that straight in your head, all the other things are just... And then it's just part of the journey.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's part of the story.
00:21:37
Speaker
There is no destination.
00:21:38
Speaker
It's about the process.
00:21:41
Speaker
it's kind of full circle.
00:21:42
Speaker
It's like, that's the ultimate North star,
Conclusion and Goodbye
00:21:44
Speaker
right?
00:21:44
Speaker
That's the ultimate North star that you need to stick to.
00:21:46
Speaker
And I think that's such a beautiful note to end on.
00:21:48
Speaker
And you and Dalton have given us so much to think about, not just with strategic partnerships, but just like life in the universe in general, where I'm like, I've taken a lot of notes.
00:21:57
Speaker
I'm going to go journal.
00:21:58
Speaker
I'll be back.
00:22:00
Speaker
See you later.
00:22:01
Speaker
But I just really appreciate you both being here.
00:22:03
Speaker
It's been such a wonderful, deep discussion.
00:22:06
Speaker
Thank you.
00:22:07
Speaker
You're welcome.
00:22:07
Speaker
Happy to do it.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
Thanks, Karim.
00:22:10
Speaker
Thanks to you too, Jeremy.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
Thanks, Dalton.
00:22:12
Speaker
And of course, thank you for listening as we dive deep into what it takes to create the perfect pitch.
00:22:18
Speaker
If you want to learn more about our investor Dalton Wright from Kickstart or our founder Jeremy Hanks and Disco, we'll have a link to the company and a longer bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:22:28
Speaker
You can listen to more episodes of Perfect Pitch wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:22:32
Speaker
And if you like what you're learning, leave us a review or rating.
00:22:34
Speaker
We'll be back next time with more insights from entrepreneurs and the investors who fund them.
00:22:39
Speaker
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.