70% of Entrepreneurs Should QUIT (Here’s Why)

Ned Eric, Director of Business Strategy at acquisition.com, pulls no punches on the harsh reality of being a founder, estimating that 70% of entrepreneurs would be better off quitting. He highlights the dangerous disconnect between the glamorous lifestyle portrayed on social media and the actual grueling, weekend-consuming work required to build a sustainable business. For those who stay in the game, success relies heavily on executing true strategy, which he defines as the prioritization and allocation of limited resources. A key theme in the conversation is the danger of "blue ocean" thinking. Ned advocates for entering markets with "blood in the water"—highly competitive spaces where demand is already proven. Instead of spending capital on expensive customer education, businesses should focus on iteration over innovation. By looking at competitors operating at 80% efficiency and simply executing that last 20% better, founders can carve out massive market share without reinventing the wheel. Finally, Ned shares exclusive insights into the high-performance culture at acquisition.com, built on principles like competitive greatness, sincere candor, and unimpeachable character. He also tackles the productivity killer of procrastination, advising revenue leaders to start any new project the very day it is assigned. By executing immediately through rapid brain dumps, leaders can overcome fear and drastically increase their speed of learning through the sheer volume of doing.

Discussed in this episode

Why the sugarcoated, social media-driven view of entrepreneurship is setting up 70% of founders for failure.
The necessity of separating market signals from noise to know exactly when to push forward or pivot.
Why "blue ocean" strategies are dangerous due to the high cost and difficulty of market education.
The advantage of entering competitive "blood in the water" markets where demand is already proven.
How Eastern business styles focus on iterating the last 20% rather than the Western obsession with pure innovation.
The true definition of strategy as the strict prioritization, allocation, and execution of business resources.
Why misidentifying a company's core constraint leads to catastrophic go-to-market failures.
The simple rule for beating procrastination by starting a brain dump the first day a task is assigned.

Episode highlights

0:00 — Intro to Ned Eric
2:15 — The reality of founder life
4:30 — Why 70% should quit
7:00 — Signal vs. noise framework
9:45 — Blue ocean vs. blood in the water
12:30 — Iteration over innovation
14:45 — Defining true business strategy
17:20 — Identifying business constraints
20:00 — Overcoming task procrastination
22:15 — Acquisition.com culture values
25:30 — Rapid fire questions

Key takeaways

Identify your business constraints before allocating new go-to-market resources.
Enter markets with proven demand rather than spending to educate buyers.
Execution and iteration beat pure innovation in almost every traditional business.
Start new tasks immediately to overcome fear-driven procrastination.
Base your company culture on candor, character, and competitive greatness.

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagine. I am here to do the only good thing that I do, which is introduce our amazing guest who is Ned Eric, the director, now different title y'all, Director of Business strategy at the small little place called acquisition.com where he works alongside Alex and Lela to help founders scale. Here's the thing though.

He's been the first sales higher, the first sales leader, an operator in the trenches of startups and scaleups. He's led go to market at companies like Cannymatic, built growth teams from scratch and now is actually working with founders and Portcos to advise them on what drives revenue. Big changes have happened since we spoke last. Ned, welcome back to the show, man, from my hometown.

Yeah, yeah, thanks y'all for having me. I'm excited to be back and yes, big changes from your hometown, man. Why why are you not in a casino with like all the dinging shit in the background when we're having this episode. Like Ned Ned should be taking this while he's playing.

Excuse me, I I have to decide my next hand at the Blackjack table. Yeah. Little do you know I'm in a back room in the win right now, so. Yeah, perfect.

Is this is this the back room because they kicked you out for counting cards? Yeah, I made too much money last night, you know. Nice. Nice.

Send send some my way, please. It's so funny. Ned, thanks for joining again. Um, and and you've been like a first sales hire and you now you're scaling in the strategist.

So you've been both first sales hire, first sales leader, more than once. What keeps pulling you back into the early chaos? Insanity? Um, yeah, I was going to say insanity.

Uh, I will say it, I I've been very blessed in my career and uh, I've been given opportunities by people who uh, probably shouldn't have given me the opportunities, but they saw something in me. And I really do love being able to see a business go from where it is to where it's meant to be. And I've been through a lot, right? You know, I started in tech, I was in consulting, started a home services company, sold it, got put on like we've done everything across the gamut.

I think the only thing I haven't done is e-commerce. Um, and so at this point, only thing yet, you haven't done. Yeah, there you go. That is one thing I probably won't go into.

Um, but I think from my perspective like getting pulled back in is just, you know, I see all of these individuals and entrepreneurship is booming, it has been booming. Um, and it's a hard space, it's a lonely space and for me, if I can go help one founder, you know, change the trajectory of their business, their life, their family, um, it just fires me up. So I think that's interesting thing when you talk about changing the trajectory of their life and their family. I think that's a side that and listen, we're all, we're all founders or have been founders.

I think that's a side that a lot of people don't talk about is the impact that being a founder has on your family. Um, like it's a whole different world. Like Dale and I've talked about this a bit like, I was petrified. Like petrified to go out on my own.

And like this fool's like, oh dude, just do it, it'll be fine, don't worry about it, like it's gonna be great, everything's wonderful, like, it's a real impact, right? Like Saturday phone calls, Sunday phone calls, like everything stops. Like how do you, especially now, um, in your role, like how do you have that conversation with founders about like, this is what it really takes to be successful. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it it it really is just being blunt. Like it because I think too often it is sugarcoated, right? And not to say that, you know, Dalia sugarcoated to Adam, you did a great job getting you know where you now are co-founders, but uh, I think too often it is sugarcoated in the sense of like we see the end result on social media. We see the the cars and the planes and on the beach and the rented cars and planes.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, did you know that there's actually like plane companies, yeah, that will like literally rent you just like the cockpit for the day. It's probably not the cockpit, whatever they call it.

Yeah. It's like in it's like this it's like in the they have like in a studio. I imagine. Studio.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like, yeah. That's crazy. Anyway.

There's uh there's uh there's there's a big section eight guy who I won't mention by name, um, who is so big and made so much money on section eight that he now is going to sell you his secret for $5,000, right? Um, and because he wants everyone to be as rich as him. Um, but all of his videos are like with Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis and big houses and every I'm like, all right, like show us the show us the paper to show that you own that shit and you're not renting that stuff. I digress, I'm sorry.

Yeah. No, but that's the truth, right? Like the the aspect of like, this is going to be easy. Hey, if you buy my course, it's going to be the easiest thing in the world.

You're going to have three steps and you're going to make seven figures in seven days. It's just not the truth. And so I think like in a lot of cases, it really does just come down to like, hey, you have to be prepared for this work. And it's not for everyone.

Like I do honestly think that there are 60 to 70% of people that are entrepreneurs probably should not be. I think the truth is there is like, you know, there's an entrepreneur in all of us, right? But I think there is a piece of like, hey, some of you might not actually make it through the tough parts. And it doesn't matter if you have a deep why.

It doesn't matter if like, oh man, like I started this company because, you know, I got let go during COVID and all it's like, no, like you're you're your story doesn't matter. The the the market decides if you have value. Yeah. And sometimes the market decides that you don't have value, and that doesn't mean you're not a valuable human being or that you're not going to go be an amazing COO or an amazing VP somewhere.

But it means that, hey, you might just not be an entrepreneur. And sometimes that's just the conversation that you have to have. And the cool part about here is like we are working with founders that are, you know, a million dollars and up in profit, right? Yep.

Um, and so those people you typically don't have to have that conversation with. Um, it's typically, you know, the sales guy that just got let go from his last sales job that's now a sales consultant that you have to be like no, come on. You're being way too generous. The sales guy who just got let go from his sales job, who is now the go to market expert, who's going to help you scale your startup with the only title he's ever had is director of BDR.

Exactly, right? It's like, so I don't necessar I don't have to have those conversations here. Um, God bless you. But yeah, it I I think there is a lot of just misinformation out there of what it looks like to be a founder and like, hey, yeah, like you said, Saturday phone calls, Sunday phone calls, not going on vacation, really like actually putting focus into a thing and like understanding that you have to do more than you've ever done ever in your life because for most people you've gotten by by doing kind of just enough not to get fired.

And you're still going to make whatever your salary is and if you're in sales, you're going to hit quota and you're going to live a decent life. If you don't do the work as a founder initially, you're just going to fail. Yeah, and the market's undefeated. Um, so like it it's always undefeated.

Like whether you think it's a good idea or a bad idea. And and I know, you know, if you go back into Alex's career, like, you know, and and not everything is a success. Like I don't think like you're going to be successful in everything you do. It doesn't mean you stop doing what you love doing.

It doesn't mean you're not an entrepreneur in particular. It just means that for that particular job, section, product, service, that market doesn't see value in it. And so, um, I do think overall, you do you you just need to be honest with yourself sometimes. And there's a fine balance, right?

Because when do you stop versus when do you keep going? Because if you stop too early, you may kick yourself later on. But if you keep going, you may kick yourself later on. So like what's your risk tolerance principle, right?

Like it's hey, do I keep pushing or do I pivot? And I think there's, you know, when you think about like push versus pivot is I look at it kind of like signal versus noise. Right? And it's like, what are the signals telling you?

And, you know, and and realistically everything else is noise. That's a that's a Steve Jobs thing, right? Steve Jobs was the one that said like, when you go in on a day, you're going to get pulled in a hundred different directions. But are they signal or are they noise?

And if you just follow your signals, then you're going to actually execute properly. If you if you if you get pulled into the noise, like you're not going to hit the three things that you need to finish on that day to be successful. I mean, we talk about this a lot. I I use similar but different verbage like when I'm talking to, you know, reps or CS leaders or sales leaders.

Like whether it's customer complaints or rep complaints, like, is this important or is this loud? Like I could have one customer who is an extremely low ARR customer who's blowing up the entire orifice with a problem that's so important to them, but in the grand scheme of things, probably doesn't matter. Yet you have four CSMs, three reps, two C levels who are bringing this up to the product team with this is something we have to fix right now for this one customer. Whereas you have this giant customer who's having a major issue, they impact the whole like many people and they're being so quiet.

Let's focus on the important, not the loud. They're very similar thing that I think holds true across the board. Yeah, yeah, and I think it's it's the same thing in, you know, entrepreneurship when you're trying to figure out like, hey, is this working versus not? And I think a lot of times like, you know, Alex says there's a there's unlimited ways to get to a million dollars as a company, like unlimited.

And so I think it really just comes down to like, what is your goal? Right? If you want to go be a trillionaire, right? And you like want to be a Yeah, that'd be cool, right?

I'm in. How do I do that? You're probably not going to do it by being like a restaurant tour. Like, you know, it's just it's probably just not going to happen, you know, but you you're going to have to probably have some sort of really specialized AI type skill.

If you want to go do a hundred million dollars, and if especially if we're just talking valuation, you could go do that probably in the next three years in a couple of verticals and be pretty piss poor and make a couple of right decisions and you could probably do that, right? And so it's like it's just a real it's a matter of the vehicle that you're in. And I think that too often what happens is that people actually like don't think inside the box enough. And what I mean by that is like I started an Hvac company.

Yeah. Like So let let but let's pause there for a second. I'm I'm And the way that you said that, everyone thinks, not everyone, but there is a large quantity of people who think that the only way to and these are my words, not yours, get rich. Um, are to go form some sexy software company.

And I I I I want to hear your thoughts specifically like, I started an H track company because let me tell you something, I was at a wedding in Chicago the other week with a plumber who probably makes more than all three of us put together. Um, they don't have to be sexy, y'all. No. Yeah, I mean it's it it comes down to what is like, what is the upside?

Like plain and simple. And when I look at a business, you know, it's like I I've been a Warren Buffett fan for a long time, but um, you know, and I don't know if any of you guys know Andrew Wilkinson, but he's kind of like the Warren Buffett of like the uh, like this new era. He owns tiny capital. And it's always like when you think about what you're going to go do, it's like, what's never going to go away?

Right? It's like, what's what are people going to always need? Right? And so I think there's and and the thing that also is is I actually look for blood in the water.

I actually don't want blue ocean. Because blue ocean means that I've got to go educate the market on this. Yeah, education is tough. It's super hard.

I've been a part of three start two startups that we've had to go educate. And we got really lucky that it wasn't a ton of education, but like it's a difficult first climb up that mountain when you're educating. And so I look for blood in the water. Like, I mean we had tons of competition in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Chuck and his truck. We've got freaking major Hvac companies all across the southeast that are working there. I want that because if they screw up, Mary's going to Google, she's going to see us and we're getting that call. We're going to get to put that sticker on there and then you can start to build the brand, right?

And so I think that's the thing that most people really miss out on. It's like do the thing that other people are doing and they're doing really well. It's like, you know, in the Western culture, we've really kind of focused on innovation, which is cool from the perspective of like, thank you Apple, you know, thank you Google, thank you Chat GPT OpenAI. That's awesome.

10 out of 10. But, that was really cool behind you, Adam, by the way. Oh, them. Yeah.

So we're we're we're at the Gaylord Oprylands, um, and there are fountains. You know Ned, you you have one that's even cooler about 30 minutes from your house. Drive down to the strip, stand in front of the Bellagio. It'll it'll make this look like you're your kid's little playpen in the backyard.

Yeah, yeah, I do. I uh, yeah, I could probably like walk there from where I am right now. But I just wanted to make Dale feel jealous with the background. Because we've got fountains here that you have.

Yeah. I'm home. I'm enjoying my house. Yeah, Dale's like, I'm in Florida.

What are you guys doing? I'll go up my boat in a few minutes and and uh take her out down to the beach. But yeah, I mean I think like from a Western perspective we focus so much on innovation. When in reality, I think like when you look at like Eastern business style, it's very like iteration.

It's look at the business that's doing it at like 80% and you go the rest of the 20. Look at the business. Yeah, go that last mile because it's like, if someone's doing 100 million and the serviceable addressable market's a billion dollars, like you can go get 100 million dollars. You can go get 200 million dollars.

And I think that's the thing that really differentiates the founders that I see be consistently successful than the ones that aren't. Like Sharon, who's the president here now, real estate. Like he was the president at Real Brokerage. Guess what's never going away.

Homes. Whether we, you know, we can sit there all we want and be like, people aren't buying houses. Yeah, they are. Like, but also real estate companies are starting like rental pieces of their business and things like that.

They're taking it that next mile and becoming also property managers and leasing agents and things of that nature. It's like, what are those things? That's where you're going to see the most success and that's why coaches, consultants, things of that nature, they're always going to exist. That's why it's a great model if you do it the right way because a business is always going to need someone to come in and look at their strategy, come in and look at their marketing or their sales or whatever it may be.

You know, their go to market gap if you will. Um, Nice. You know. It's like those are the things that are always going to exist.

That's where you double down on. You've got a ton of competition, you've got to build a brand. Your brand is your moat. But if you're thinking about going and starting a business, it's like stop looking at, you know, becoming some, you know, the next new innovative idea.

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And so, um, you know, the the blue collar type stuff is is a big opportunity for people. That's why even college today, like, you know, yes, there is a need for a lot of college people in places. AI will take over a lot of these jobs or the mundane pieces of these jobs. The people that are super high-level strategy ensuring execution on the strategy because the strategy is not enough anymore either.

Like, yes, you can be a strategist, but you have to be a executable strategist and not just a strategist. Well, I I think because the thing with strategy is no one's ever really defined it, right? You know, the strategy is the allocation of resources, right? It is the prioritization and allocation of resources.

Well, what do you do once you prioritize and allocate those resources? Because I can look at, you know, oh, cool, we have a, you know, let's just say it's like we have a a demand constraint in the business, right? We don't have enough people coming through the door. Okay, we've like, we figured out what that constraint is.

But if the company does a good job on social media and does webinars and does all these things and they've got a really good like marketing side of the business and they've just got an inbound sales team that needs more leads. It's going to take 12 or 18 months for you to actually build out and successfully execute on a cold outbound team. Yeah. So the allocation and the prioritization of resources should not be go hire 20 SDRs, it should be go become better at the thing that you're already doing.

Go do more and make that better. And I think that's where strategy really starts to become this like amorphous language is because like, oh, I'm a strategist, right? Like I I am a director of business strategy, right? But the strategy, once you start to understand the strategy is about looking at the constraints, understanding the resources of where someone is, understanding where they are and what they're doing and then really giving the advice and executing on the advice of what that team can do and not saying, oh, just go hire 20 SDRs.

Like that's where strategy becomes this very specific executable thing. Yeah, you you have to like you said it you said it perfectly. You can tell people what to do and they don't know how to go do it. You have to actually hold their hand and help them go do the thing that you're suggesting they do go do.

Because it's easy to talk about doing things, it's very difficult to actually do things. And I think And it might not be worth them even doing it. It might not even be It may not even be worth holding their hand across It just may be worth doing more of the thing that's working. How how often do we run into that though?

Both of those, number one, I would say 80% of our engagements come to us from failed prior engagements with other companies of strategists who couldn't deliver. And then number two, you know, is is what is being proposed Ned, to your point, worth doing or is this the total wrong idea? Like there's lots of shit that I want to try every day. Yeah, is it even the thing cuz I think, you know, when I was at Close Loop, right?

We did go to market consulting and the amount of people that came to us that said that they had a sales problem when in reality, it was actually a customer success problem. Oh, we can tell you stories, my friend. I'm sure you can tell us. Right?

It's like, so I think a lot of times and this is why, you know, Adam, you know, you said like the the sales kid who now can become your go to market expert and grow your company. It's why you cannot be a strategist if you haven't seen everything. Because you have to be able to identify the single constraint of the business. What is the bottleneck?

What is the thing that is stopping? And when you are in the business and I can say even when, you know, we're running Beam and then addics, there were times that I had to like go out to a 40,000 foot view and be like, oh crap, like it actually isn't our sales that's the problem. It's just the fact that we don't our we don't have a lead nurture specialist. So people aren't showing up to the call.

So our close rate is actually really good when they show up to the call. It's just not really good when they're like not showing up to the call. So like that that tends to hamper close rates. Right?

Oh, duh, man. Um, so it's like understanding that and being able to push back and say like, this is actually the constraint that's bogging you down. And then let's do and then let's figure out what are the resources you have? What is the team that you have?

Now if the constraint is people, then it's like, okay, cool, then what kind of person do you need and then how do we go out and build a hiring funnel that's going to get you that person at the end of the day. Because oh, by the way, if you need if the constraint is marketing and you need more leads and you don't have a marketer and you don't have someone that understands that, well, we've got to go interview 25 agencies or we've got to go interview 100 people. Which one do you want to do first? Right?

And so it's like those are the kind of things that when you talk about strategy, it's a lot of like understanding seeing the forest from the trees and being able to actually understand what it looks like to prioritize and allocate and then execute and execute on the right things. Yeah. I it's execution beats ideas every single time, right? Like we could all sit and talk about all these great ideas and the great strategies.

And I think that's what differentiates the best revenue leaders. Forget revenue leaders. The best anything that we see every day. Um, and and I think that goes from CEOs, even to like a conversation I was having with my kid before I left for this trip about like, so it's he's in his freshman year in high school.

And he has this project and like it's all this I couldn't be like, just do something. Like we we just got to pick something, we got to do it, and we got to do it really, really, really well. Um, so I agree with you. Well, I I love that you actually brought up the project piece because this is super interesting.

One thing that I actually heard this from Sharon was when you get some like a task on your plate and it's like supposed to be, let's say you've got like a two-week until it's due. Do the first like 20% the first day you have it. Do the first like 50% the first day you have it. Just start the thing.

Because it's like, and then then you just eventually you just start doing. Like you're like, oh, cool. It's like I'm I'm going to play this for my kid, Ned, so he hears it from someone other than me. Yeah.

I mean, it's like just start because like, you know, I I truly believe that it's like the speed of learning comes from the volume of doing. Right? We have the like framework here. It's more better new.

Like you have to do more of the thing that's working, then do some things that are better, and then if all else fails, then we can sit there and go to like, let's do this new thing. And I think a lot of times when we have these like expanded time horizons, it's like, oh, cool. Well, I'll figure that out later. I'm going to go prioritize these things.

But then in the last, you know, 20% of time that you've got for it, you're like, oh shit. Like, I've got to go figure out how to get all this done in this short period of time. When in reality, it's like, just start the thing. And even if starting the thing is just a brain dump.

Like anytime I see a new company, I just brain dump. And then by the time that I'm ready to go have that conversation, dude, I know that business because I brain dumped, I've started to research, then like I research and then from there I'm like, oh, cool. This is what I think. Oh, here's the industry.

This is what's going on. And it's like, by the time I know, I have 30 minutes in and it's like, something that I expected to take me two hours took me, you know, 30 minutes just to get all of the knowledge that I needed. So it's just a matter of like, when you've got that expanded time horizon, just start doing something. It doesn't have to be good.

Yeah. If if people have procrastination because of fear and fear is like a wasted emotion. So like until you go to a place of like, like you're saying just starting on something, because then you will complete it based on the things that you're doing versus like my procrastination of, oh, this might be hard. So you tell yourself and then your brain says, okay, well, you should go, you know, go get an ice cream.

Like whatever it is. Do something easy, right? You you do love ice cream, Dale. I am, I am.

Ice cream is good. It is. I I like ice cream while I'm doing the thing, you know. I like it.

I I tried to go for ice cream last night. I'm in Nashville. Um, who's known for Jenny's splendid ice cream. Um, and my wife is like, nope, we're not going for ice cream, don't need it.

It's like, damn you. Yeah, that's where you go for a midnight ice cream. Oh, I like it. So we we only have a few minutes left and before we go to rapid fire, I want to I want to just touch on your recent move.

So, like, big name place, right? Like everyone knows who acquisition.com is. Like, were you sitting in your living room thinking like, man, one day I want to go work with Alex.

Like, I I I want to go work for these people or was this more of like a natural thing that just happened to be or did you like will yourself to go work with Alex? Um, I think it was perfect timing is what it was. Um, so, you know, Aticx actually, uh, about a couple months ago finalized a merger with one of the largest solar installers in the country. Nice.

Which is cool. Yeah. I I didn't hate that. Um, but it definitely it was one of those things where during that whole experience, I was like, do I want to go do another three to five years and maybe take this thing public?

It was like, not really. It didn't excite me too much. Um, and so it was definitely a, you know, I think if Aticx hadn't been going through that and we were, you know, continuing to scale on our own. Um, there's probably like a good chance that this like the timing just wouldn't have matched.

Um, when this crossed my desk, it became like, I have to go do this. Like, absolutely. Like, you know, I've been following Alex like, for those of people that know, it's like I got my start in fitness tech. So like I was selling mobile apps to gyms and he was like the gym guy.

I I remember his first ad. It was like him in the hood, like selfie, like, yo, I got this stack of contracts. And it's like, dude, it's like a gym in a house, you know. Um, and it was like when he just, I don't even think it was gym launch at the time.

And so I've been following Alex. I mean, I've got all the books. I literally have implemented. Like he's got this like on time, on budget, like thing that home services like framework for home services.

We did it, you know, at Aticx and at Beam. Like it's I've been following him, have loved like everything. When Layla started putting out content about like culture and like the importance of culture and like, I ate that up. Like we implemented a lot of the things that she did.

Like, so as soon as this crossed my desk, you know, I was like, this just I I have to do this. And it's like, this is like the first time in my career that I'm like, I'm looking out 10 years at a company. Because I mean, you guys are in tech. It's three to five, right?

It's like, yo, what are we going to do in the next three years? We're going to sell this baby. You know, and then we're going to go do something else. Here it's like, just the team that's here.

I mean, I'm surrounded by absolute A-players. Um, and like real A-players, not like, you know, the just like the really cushy thing. I mean, these are studs like McKinsey alumni, BCG, Bain, like guys that have worked at Vector and like, all of these places and then, oh, by the way, just like they're hiring process and the culture and the focus and just like, they, you know, they they focus on competitive greatness. Like you have to be just like, you know, you step into the the ring and like, we go be the best in the world.

Like, the end, hard stop. Like they focus on sincere candor, like tough conversations, but also being able to take those tough conversations and grow from those. And then like the other one is unimpeachable character, which I love. Which is just like the piece of like, dude, these are my values.

This is what I stick to. And if you are against those, it's like, we're not on the same team. And that's okay. Like, we don't have to be.

But like we're just not on the same team. And they stick by those, they hire by those principles, they fire by those principles, they promote by those principles, and it's just like, when I was just getting into it and since I've been here, I mean, it is I I look back at the companies that I've run and started and I'm like, dang, we sucked. You know. It's humbling, right?

It's it's and it's so good. It's so humbling and it's like so good to be in it. Um, you know, I'm just excited every single day. I mean, we have 100 businesses that walk through the door every single day.

The rate of learning is, you know, 10X. Everyone jokes that like a year here is 10 years anywhere else. Um, dude, I've been here since August 20th, 25th. Um, and like so what, three weeks and yeah, I I totally agree.

It feels like if a year is 10, three weeks is for sure a year. So. I'm I'm I'm so incredibly happy for you and I I'd love to, you know, dig like I would love to know and we don't have time for it. Like I I could imagine what the interview process was like and the conversations and like I'd imagine you don't just walk into acquisition.

com and be like, hi, I'd like to work for you. Let's talk about one time like give me an example of a time that you raved some revenue. Um, I I don't think it was like that. But it's it's going to be very exciting to see your journey, see acquisition.

com's journey and how it it is influenced by you joining. Um, before we wrap up, you know, we have to jump into some rapid fire because that's the way we roll. You've played this game before. What's the most underrated go to market role in an early stage company today?

Ooh, underrated go to market role, uh customer success. Oh, I love that. One sales trend that you're tired of hearing about. Uh that AI is going to kill sales people.

Like relax. Calm down. All right. So I I I know you just started in your new role, but if you weren't in sales, you're not in strategy, and you're not allowed to go back to fitness.

What are you going to do? Oh, dang, dude. Bus driver? No.

Um, Can't go back to fitness. You got to start over tomorrow. Yeah, you can't go back to fitness. Can't go back.

Can't be in sales, can't be in strategy. You got to start over tomorrow. I'd be honestly, dude, I'd be like a long haul truck driver. Nice.

You see the you see the country. It's pretty dope. Like, you know, like you get some alone time. You get to like be on the road.

Yeah. Let's let's say that. It's probably wrong, but let's say that. That's all right.

I I I'm I'm in. So I'm going to throw Adam off. We're going to wrap this up, but I'm going to ask a different question. Wait a minute, you're not going to ask him his favorite vacation destination cuz we already know that answer.

No. Yes. Well, now it's Neptune Beach cuz I don't live there anymore, so. Too shay.

So Alex always talks about never missed dessert. So what's your favorite dessert and why? Cured by cookies. It is a cookie company out of Orlando, Florida.

They ship nationally. It is the best. I'm a cookie connoisseur and it is the best cookie I have ever had in my entire life. Really?

Dead stop. Like every single person listening to this, you too, both go order the September launch. Like 100%, tell her Ned sent you and maybe I'll get a free cookie. I don't know.

All right. Well, give me the name of it. Give me the name of it one more time. I'm going to pull it up.

Yeah, so the company is called Cured by cookies. Cured by cookies. And the website is cured by cookie. Oh, that looks really good.

Bro. Next level. Okay. And and they ship.

Okay, I'm in. Yeah. Oh, I made sure of it. We weren't moving to Vegas unless they did, you know.

That good. Nice. All right. I'm in.

I'm in. I'm in. Ned, thanks for joining the show, man. Thanks for sharing the cookie tip.

Uh, I love a good cookie. Uh, we're excited to follow your journey. No, thanks, guys, for having me. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it.