Presentation: Inspired Teams Accomplish Great Things
Speaker: John Bunting, Founder and CEO of Beeso Studio
John Bunting has over 18 years of project management experience. He has managed and hired agile teams for the last 10 years.
He has taken development teams from 0 to 100+ and managed portfolios up to $7.5M. John has worked on technology projects and initiatives for; Siemens AG, Hyundai, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda, Kia, Electronic Arts, University of Phoenix, Kiewit, Creighton University, Northern Natural Gas, Graybar
He has founded several companies, including two startup studios. John is currently the Founder / CEO of Beeso Studio a startup studio in Omaha, NE.
Description:
A micro view of how to create a well functioning project team. A well established project team has clear objectives, is part of the solution and has ownership in the outcome. Successful project managers have the ability inspire and enable teams to deliver. There are multiple benefits to an inspired team, including greater efficiency and predictability. Also inspired project teams have the ability to mitigate risks better.
Learning Objectives:
- Importance of daily scrums to inspire and direct teams
- Create ownership through collaboration
- Support project teams and enable them to succeed
(0:03) This session is recorded, and the title is inspired teams accomplish great things. (0:13) Hello everyone I'm the VP of programs of PMI Heartland, and I have the pleasure today to introduce to you our speaker, john Bunting, he's the founder and CEO of be so studio john has over 18 years of project management experience (0:31) he has managed and hired HR teams for the last 10 years. He has taken development teams from zero to 100 plus and managed portfolios, up to $7.5 million.
(0:45) John has worked on technology projects and initiatives for Siemens, a gay human they Honda, Suzuki, Mazda Kia Electronic Arts University of Phoenix, he would create an university, Northern natural gas gray bar and many other companies. (1:04) He has founded several companies including two startups to studios john is currently the founder and CEO of business to studio, but startup studio in Omaha, Nebraska. (1:17) For this webinar, we will learn more about the micro view of how to create a well functioning projecting a well established project team has clear objectives is part of the solution, and has ownership in the outcome.
(1:32) Successful project manager has the ability to inspire and enable enable teams to deliver. (1:39) There are multiple benefits to an inspired team, including greater efficiency and predictability also inspire project teams have the ability to meet isn't really good though. (1:52) We will continue with the learning objectives, please be so kind to unmute yourself to mute yourselves.
(2:01) The learning objectives are the following importance of daily scrum to inspire and direct teams, create ownership to collaboration, not just cooperation and support project teams and enable team to succeed. (2:17) But this time I would like to invite john to present the topic of today again inspire teams accomplish great things. (2:28) Thank you john for being with us.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction.
It's great to meet with everybody today. (2:34) I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. (2:38) And with this, with this presentation.
(2:42) As I go through this and kind of talk about you know my experience of managing teams and some things that we've done to get some good, you know, performance and really just having a great cohesive team. (2:53) As I go through this and talk about you know my experience the background and kind of really what we do. (2:58) Feel free to ask any questions that you have.
(3:01) You can post those questions in the chat and I can answer those as we progress. (3:07) And ultimately, this presentation and you know what I'm going to be going through is just really my experience. I, as mentioned, I've been working in project management for about 18 years now.
(3:20) Managing, you know, all sorts of different projects from large scale projects to working with startups, and, you know, going through that experience, you know, the types of projects in how I've applied agile methodology. (3:35) I first started using agile, you know, many years ago actually in 2009 and then, you know, since then just how I've applied agile and how we actually use it today. (3:45) This is very much a micro view of how we apply agile so really learning about how we actually apply it and how that relates to how we run projects and teams and such.
(3:58) And so I hope you can take away from this presentation some ideas and some ways to basically apply it on the projects that you're working on, or you're managing or, you know, in, you know, have some understanding of. (4:13) From there, I'll kind of go back into my background. (4:17) And so, you know, as mentioned, I've worked for a bunch of, you know, large companies.
(4:23) I really started working on agile, when I was at, you know, EA Games. (4:29) That was in, I lived in California for a period of time and worked, you know, on these agile projects for EA Games and working the gaming space is a lot of fun. (4:40) A lot of different, you know, culturally it's a lot different than a normal enterprise environment.
(4:47) You know, we would have, you know, they would have parties on the, you know, parties on Fridays and stuff and, you know, one thing that took me a little while to get used to was the fact because it was a gaming space, they would do, they bring in beer kegs and drink, you know, regularly at the office, which was a little different. (5:08) But it was a lot of fun. And interestingly enough, I was working for EA Games in, during the period of time that they came out with the iPhone, as well as the iPad and the Android devices and stuff.
(5:21) So it was a very exciting time, you know, with the technology and the hardware, and then building software to work on these new types of phones that were being released at the time. (5:32) And we were using agile there, we're following, utilizing JIRA, one of the key tools that we're using. (5:40) And, you know, that was a very exciting thing.
And then, you know, with that, I've worked for different, done different projects, custom software development projects for car companies. (5:51) And, you know, very interesting space to be in, working in the automotive industry. (5:55) You know, they have lots of different constraints and different things that they have to consider.
(6:01) Their main focus, from an automotive standpoint, is the relationship with the dealerships and making sure the dealers are supported in their processes with respect to sales and customer service. (6:13) And, you know, I was managing projects, like I said, that basically built software to facilitate and ease those processes and make those a smoother experience, ultimately, for the customer who is purchasing vehicles. (6:28) And then, from there, I, you know, spent some time in the education space.
(6:33) I worked for a university at Phoenix for a period of time, and managing actually in data warehousing, working with business intelligence, managing a team there, really doing a deep dive, you know, on the whole data warehousing side, data science, predictive modeling, and such. (6:52) And then, that was a great time to be there. (6:56) And then, I actually, you know, in, this was in 2015, I actually decided to make a career change, where I decided to go out and actually, you know, work more independently on my own.
(7:08) And I started a, as mentioned, I started a startup studio, co-founded one. (7:15) I was in Las Vegas at the time. (7:18) And it was a very interesting experience, because I had a couple founders with me, and really just kind of figuring out how a startup studio works.
(7:29) And ultimately, with that experience of running a startup studio, and in a startup studio, for those that, if you're not familiar, basically, it is a entity that provides support for startups. (7:44) And generally speaking, startup studios actually spend a lot of time formulating ideas and stuff, and bringing those to market. (7:55) And we did that for about two years, working the startup studio space.
(8:00) And then, I end up leaving that position that I had with a company in Las Vegas. (8:06) And I actually, you know, relocated here to Omaha. (8:09) And when I was here in Omaha, as you can see, there's a few, you know, brands on here that are related to Omaha, like Kiewit and University of Creighton.
(8:18) That's where I went back into the IT consulting space, and did more agile software development projects for these, you know, large entities. (8:28) And while I was doing that, it basically occurred to me that there wasn't a startup studio in Omaha. (8:35) And with that, I actually founded BeSo Studio.
(8:42) From there, so with BeSo Studio, what we do is we essentially take, you know, some of the concepts of a startup studio, and then we also go out and find startups that are, you know, that have, you know, good ideas or good opportunities, and we end up working with them. (9:04) It's a very active, engaging process to do what we do today, where we, you know, we talk to about 100 startups a month. (9:13) And these startups are, you know, in the United States, they're also outside the United States.
(9:18) So, for example, you know, I have a meeting next week with a startup in Ireland. (9:23) We've been talking to one in Egypt. (9:26) And then we also have some startups in the U.S. that we're talking to, and also here in Omaha.
(9:31) Unlocking Service Now is the latest and greatest on May 3rd. We hope to see you there. (9:37) So, with that, so we are essentially working with these startups.
(9:41) Join us for our upcoming webinar. (9:44) I think we're getting some feedback. (9:47) Anyways, so with the startups, we go out, we talk to them, and what we do is we essentially provide some core services for the startups that we engage.
(9:59) One of those things that we do is we help them raise capital, help them raise funding. (10:04) And we've been relatively successful at that. To date, we've raised about a million and a half for our startups that we work with.
(10:11) We'll probably double that by the end of the year to probably about $3 million raised for the startups that we partner with. (10:18) The other things that we do are software development, which is a core competency and core, you know, expertise that we have. (10:25) Where we build custom applications, very much a greenfield development process.
(10:31) And that's really where we apply Agile. (10:34) And then we also do marketing. (10:36) We run marketing campaigns, whether it be ad campaigns, digital growth campaigns, social media campaigns, and such for these startups.
(10:43) And then we also help them with sales. (10:46) So we'll go out there, do business development, make connections. (10:49) I like to say we knock on doors and try to open doors for startups in terms of selling their product.
(10:57) And then the final thing that we do is we do a lot of different back-office activities like hiring, interviewing. (11:04) And we help them, you know, sometimes we'll connect them with legal law firms and such if they need legal support. (11:10) We'll help them with accounting.
We'll help them set up their organization. (11:14) We give advice and coaching on all these different things. (11:17) So we try to really be holistic in terms of how we support the startups.
(11:23) And to date, we have 13 startups in our portfolio. (11:28) Those startups, most of those startups are in the United States. (11:32) I think about a handful are in Omaha here.
(11:35) And then we also have one in Canada, and then we have two in the UK that we work with. (11:41) And we have, you know, we've had relative success at that. (11:43) From our team size, we've been able to grow our team to about 15 people.
(11:49) We have, I think, six or seven here in Omaha, and then the rest of the team is actually in Indonesia. (11:55) Because of my experience of working with these larger CL companies, (11:59) we were able to take the principles and the concept and the network and that connection (12:04) that we developed working with these larger scale companies, (12:07) and we've essentially adjusted that and scaled it for startups. (12:12) So we have a development team in Indonesia.
(12:15) Our VP of Development lives there. (12:16) So we're able to take that offshore component and build software and follow the Agile principles (12:22) and essentially build startups for, you know, basically in the US, (12:26) but we're able to do it for a bunch of lower costs. (12:28) So there's some real efficiencies that startups gain by working with us.
(12:33) And in terms of how we operate, like I said, we follow Agile. (12:38) We're very strict on the Agile methodology in terms of what we follow. (12:42) And it's a very repeatable pattern in terms of how we bring a startup on board (12:48) and how we work with them and how we help them scale.
(12:51) And ultimately, we're focused on bringing these startups to revenue as fast as possible (12:57) and getting them customers, because ultimately that gives value to the startups that we work with. (13:02) And the other component is that when we work with a startup, (13:06) it is a bit of a hybrid model, so we do charge for services. (13:09) We also have a set of services that are non-billable.
(13:12) And we also take equity in the startups that we work with. (13:15) So it's a very unique model, but we found a niche and it seems to be working well for us. (13:23) To give you an idea of the startups that we actually work with, (13:28) these are actually the ones that we work with here.
(13:32) And they're very agnostic, like I was mentioning in terms of location, (13:35) but they're also agnostic in terms of industry. (13:39) We have startups that are in the medical space. (13:41) We have startups that are in transportation.
(13:43) They're in the learning space, marketplaces. (13:46) We also work with SaaS tools. (13:49) And we work with recruiting platforms and a little bit of everything.
(13:54) It just ultimately comes down to finding startups that have good ideas (13:58) and startups that we think can grow and scale. (14:02) One thing that is interesting here is that some of these startups, (14:06) and we always know this is a fact, is that some of these startups are going to be successful (14:09) and some of them are going to be a fail. (14:11) So it's sort of a bit of a numbers game, but ultimately, (14:15) we're trying to find more winners than losers.
(14:17) And that's where we're ultimately going to be successful. (14:21) The one thing to note here, or just one note would be on Abstract, (14:26) which is a startup that we've been working with for a couple of years now. (14:30) That one's probably going to be, out of all these startups that we have, (14:34) that one's probably going to be the first one to an exit on Abstract.
(14:37) So they've had good success. (14:41) They recently closed Farmer's Insurance as a client, (14:44) and they've closed some other large companies as clients. (14:48) They provide a SaaS product that does natural language processing (14:53) and also has an AI component.
(14:56) So essentially, it will listen to a sales presentation or a call or whatever it is, (15:02) and it will transcribe that conversation. (15:05) And then it will also, in real time, based on what people say during the conversation, (15:10) it will provide real-time call coaching. (15:13) And Abstract's a very unique product.
(15:15) It's a very technically complicated product, (15:17) but we've been able to build that, launch it about a year ago, (15:21) and they were able to get paying customers within the first 30 days of launch. (15:26) And we're building out the second version of the application right now (15:30) and looking at integrating it into some products like Sales Loft and Outreach (15:37) and HubSpot and Salesforce and such, (15:40) so we can integrate into these CRMs, into these systems (15:43) that people use to make outbound sales calls. (15:50) Going on from there, as I mentioned, (15:53) we have a pattern that we follow for these startups that we work with.
(15:57) And the pattern essentially is a lot of, you know, this is very waterfall, you can see, (16:02) but essentially we take them through a discovery phase (16:05) where we really try to analyze the opportunity and really try to understand it. (16:09) And then we do a deep dive analysis and really evaluate that opportunity (16:14) to see if it makes sense for our model and see if it makes sense for them. (16:18) And then if it does, we're very much focused on the building, (16:22) you know, the doing part of the thing where you're building product, (16:24) getting sales, growing marketing, and really trying to get, you know, (16:27) raise capital and do all the activities around growing each one of these startups.
(16:32) And ultimately we're getting them to a point where they can scale (16:35) and they can continue growing on their own without our daily involvement. (16:41) So from a project standpoint, like I mentioned, (16:47) we follow agile methodology on these startups. (16:50) We've, you know, essentially with these startups, (16:53) we look at everything as a backlog item.
(16:56) So we build a backlog, we create user stories, (16:59) and then we essentially go through there and prioritize. (17:03) That's one challenge we find when working with a startup is (17:07) they have a long list of features and functionality they want to build. (17:11) However, each one of those pieces of features and functionality has a cost.
(17:16) And because it has a cost there, you know, (17:20) you have to really assess, does that drive revenue? (17:24) And we prioritize functionality based on whether it drives revenue, (17:29) if it builds customers, drives customers to the product and gets growth. (17:33) And we have to be very judicious about those decisions and what happens. (17:40) Because, you know, if we built everything in the backlog, we certainly could.
(17:44) But like I said, these startups have limited capital (17:47) and they have to be very smart about how they deploy that capital. (17:51) So we work with them to really take that backlog and groom it (17:55) and get it to a point where it makes sense in terms of, (17:57) okay, this is your version one, or this is your MVP, (18:01) and this is what we need to go to market with. (18:04) And that's how we're going to generate the revenue.
(18:07) Once those have basically been groomed and planned, (18:09) then we follow very standard processes with respect to, (18:13) you know, we take things into a sprint. (18:16) And our sprints, for how we operate, our sprints are actually three weeks. (18:22) We've tried, you know, two-week sprints.
(18:24) Sometimes, you know, we've done a one-week sprint before. (18:27) And I know you can take sprints, generally you can go up to like a four-week sprint. (18:30) But for our cases, we follow a three-week sprint.
(18:35) It works well for us because also we have an offshore team. (18:38) We have a team here, so it's very much a blended team. (18:42) And the three-week timeframe gives us a good cadence (18:44) to build out functionality, do QA testing, and get, you know, (18:47) get a demo ready, basically.
(18:50) And so we do, you know, we do weekly meetings with our startups. (18:54) You know, we give them advice and coaching and such. (18:58) We do demos with them to show them the product.
(19:01) And then we always, you know, we do sprint planning. (19:03) So we're saying, okay, next sprint, this is what we're going to be working on, (19:06) and such, to get them to that product. (19:08) And then one of the other things here is that we're actually involved (19:12) with engaging customers.
(19:15) So we will, because we're doing things in Agile, (19:18) we're able to get the product to some state of maturity (19:22) that we can actually say, okay, things are good. (19:24) We've got, you know, this many sprints completed. (19:27) Let's start getting in front of a customer.
(19:30) And in parallel, we continue building the product (19:33) or building the software. (19:34) And that way allows us to gauge, you know, (19:37) let alone with the stakeholders, are we building it correctly? (19:41) But we're able to get in front of customers and verify (19:43) that what we're building for the customer is correct also. (19:48) And ultimately, the situation we like to have (19:51) is where the customers are saying, if you get it built today, (19:54) I will give you money.
I will pay you to use it. (19:57) And so we really want to create that demand (19:59) where the customer wants the application. (20:01) They see it, they know it's coming, (20:03) and they're willing to, you know, pay for it.
(20:05) And that's a good space to be in. (20:08) Sometimes we've seen startups that will go through (20:11) the process of building and they get in front of a customer (20:13) and they realize, oh, we missed the mark. (20:15) It's not what the customer wants.
(20:17) And because we use Agile, it allows us to quickly adjust (20:21) to the upcoming sprints to get that product in line (20:24) with the customer's needs and what the customer wants. (20:28) And I've also seen situations where the, you know, we added, (20:32) I know one instance particularly, we added a feature. (20:36) And as soon as we released it to a pilot customer, (20:40) they tried to use the application differently (20:43) than how it was designed.
(20:44) And they ran into some frustration. (20:47) So those things can happen as well. (20:49) But because we're following the Agile methodology, (20:52) because we're very much, you know, on sprints (20:54) and we can adjust and make corrections (20:57) or, you know, release updates pretty quickly, (21:00) we're able to make those adjustments (21:02) and address anything with respect to the customers (21:05) and what their experience has been.
(21:07) What is, one interesting component here (21:10) is the fact that we have multiple startups (21:12) running multiple sprints at the same time (21:15) with multiple different groups of customers (21:16) and multiple industries. (21:18) So there is some, you know, complexity (21:21) with respect to managing all this work (21:23) and all the work that's in flight. (21:24) Now, one advantage for us is that our startups generally, (21:29) we have two or three in the same phase at the same time, (21:34) not more than that.
(21:35) So sometimes you'll have startups that are, you know, (21:38) deep in the new product development (21:39) while other startups are just starting (21:42) and other startups are working with their end customers. (21:44) So they're all different phases, (21:46) but they're all happening at these, in parallel. (21:50) And so we have a little bit of a management there (21:52) in terms of making sure that, you know, (21:54) we keep everything moving in the right direction (21:58) and really just kind of overseeing that (22:00) and making sure there's some coordination.
(22:02) One other component here is that (22:04) because these startups often can have (22:07) some synergies between themselves, (22:09) sometimes it allows us to introduce, you know, (22:12) one customer to a startup (22:14) and introduce the same customer to a different startup (22:17) because they actually, you know, (22:18) could be serving that customer in two different ways (22:22) and that could be competitive, (22:22) but it's actually beneficial. (22:25) And so we find some different ways (22:27) to leverage that relationship, that network effect. (22:31) And like I said, because we're following agile, (22:33) because the development is progressing, (22:35) we can, you know, quickly make some adjustments as needed.
(22:39) So any, you know, I'll pause here. (22:41) Is there any questions? (22:43) Or if there's any questions, (22:44) you can put them in the chat as we go through this. (22:53) So going on from there to give you some ideas (22:56) of how that team is structured.
(23:00) So we have, from a team standpoint, (23:05) the project manager is really the key component here. (23:08) As I mentioned, we have a project manager here in Omaha (23:13) and that person really is the person (23:16) who takes the ownership and drives this entire process. (23:20) They're the, you know, our project managers, (23:22) we use JIRA mostly, (23:23) I'd say probably 99% of the time we use JIRA.
(23:27) We've used some other products, (23:28) but JIRA seems to be the one that works best for our model. (23:34) And the project manager really takes ownership. (23:36) They're the ones who interact with the team, (23:38) who drive the team, who work with the team here in Omaha.
(23:41) They work with the team in Indonesia that we have. (23:43) And they're the ones who are, you know, (23:45) really key to this whole, you know, whole process. (23:49) The one thing I would say (23:51) is that the project manager has a support built in (23:54) because they work with a solution architect (23:56) also here in Omaha.
(23:57) And so for project managers who are, you know, (24:01) less technical, we'll say, (24:03) there is that technical support. (24:05) So as we're building these complex products, (24:08) and a lot of times when we build product, (24:10) it's usually the first time anybody's ever done something. (24:13) So there's inherently some degree of risk.
(24:15) There's inherently some degree of unknown (24:18) because people come to us with, you know, ideas. (24:22) And a lot of times it's, you know, can you prove it out? (24:25) Can you build it as even possible? (24:28) Going back to the example I talked about with Abstract, (24:31) that was a idea. (24:33) And it was, he had talked to, (24:36) I think he talked to, you know, 15 or more companies, (24:40) and they all said it wasn't possible.
(24:43) And it was, the big challenge there (24:45) was on the technology side (24:47) because we built a solution (24:49) that doesn't have any integration. (24:52) Meaning it works with, you know, (24:54) any video calling service like Zoom or, you know, (24:58) GoToMeeting or Google Meet or Cisco or whatever, (25:02) Microsoft Teams, it works with all of them. (25:04) It doesn't require any integration.
(25:06) And that was a major hurdle. (25:07) So inherently there's a degree of risk. (25:10) And that's why we have a solution architect (25:13) involved with these projects (25:15) to work with that project manager (25:16) to solution, to figure out, (25:19) to kind of, you know, build out the architecture, (25:22) the roadmap, and the direction we're going to go.
(25:25) A lot of the activities (25:27) that the solution architect does are R&D. (25:29) And then they're also working with our tech lead in Indonesia (25:33) on that R&D effort to prove things out. (25:37) And sometimes when we, you know, (25:39) we go in there with an assumption (25:40) and those assumptions prove to be wrong.
(25:44) One thing I would say is that we use Agile for the same, (25:48) you know, doing these proof of concepts, (25:50) doing these R&D efforts, we also use Agile. (25:53) But I would say in our experience, (25:55) it's a lot harder to predict R&D efforts. (26:00) And just because we're, you know, generally speaking, (26:03) you're doing something nobody's done before.
(26:05) There may not be a clear path. (26:07) There may not be good documentation. (26:10) Generally nobody's, nobody's done it.
(26:12) So you have to really kind of have to, you know, (26:15) set that expectation going in (26:17) with the startups that we work with that, (26:19) hey, there's a degree of risk here. (26:21) It may or may not work. (26:23) I remember one instance that we did an integration.
(26:27) It was the integration and synchronization (26:29) between a couple of different database technologies. (26:33) And there was no documentation. (26:36) Nobody had ever, you know, from our searching the internet, (26:38) all the research we did, nobody ever did it before.
(26:41) And it took us a while. (26:42) I think it took us probably two months to figure it out. (26:46) But we built a, you know, built a custom solution (26:49) that was able to do these, (26:50) this integration and synchronization.
(26:54) And so the R&D efforts are very, you know, (26:56) very difficult to figure out, very difficult to plan, (27:00) but we still try to follow, you know, (27:01) agile when we're doing the R&D. (27:05) And then one of the, actually one of the questions (27:07) I just got here, what are the criteria (27:08) for selecting a startup? (27:11) What we do is in terms of selecting a startup (27:14) that we work with, we look at the business as a whole. (27:18) So we look at the opportunity to space (27:20) that they're getting into.
(27:23) We look at the founders and their experience. (27:27) So, you know, a lot of times I remember, (27:29) I talked to a founder one time (27:31) and they wanted to get into the sales. (27:34) It was automobile sales.
(27:36) And, you know, one of the questions I had for them, (27:38) and so I said, well, what experience do you have (27:40) working at an auto dealership or selling cars? (27:43) And their answer was, I have none. (27:45) And so that to me is a red flag. (27:49) There's inherently a lot of risk (27:50) when you're doing a startup, (27:51) when you're doing something new.
(27:53) And we look for people who have industry experience (27:57) or some understanding of the industry (27:59) that they're getting into. (28:01) We, you know, we look at their network. (28:03) So, cause, you know, it's great to go build something, (28:06) but you have to be able to sell it.
(28:07) You have to have a network that you can leverage (28:09) that you can tap into, that you can get introductions (28:12) and whatever that may be. (28:14) So, and the other thing we look at is the opportunity. (28:18) We did a, interestingly enough, (28:21) we looked at one startup and they're in Boston, (28:24) if I remember right.
(28:25) And they wanted to do some redaction service, (28:31) basically it was a SaaS product that did redaction. (28:33) And they were targeting law firms. (28:36) And we looked at that startup and we built, (28:40) we do financial modeling.
(28:42) So we build out financial forecasts (28:44) and really try to understand in terms of (28:46) what the growth opportunity is for that startup. (28:49) And we did a financial model (28:51) and it came out to be about $10 million after five years. (28:54) And at a $10 million revenue after five years, (28:59) that's not the kind of scale we're going for.
(29:01) So we're trying to find things that are $100 million (29:04) at a five-year period or three-year period. (29:06) We're trying to find their, (29:07) things are exponential growth and venture scalable. (29:11) So we look at the founder of the industry.
(29:14) We look at the financial models. (29:18) We look at whether we have an interest (29:20) in the space that they're moving into. (29:23) And then we also take a very honest approach (29:26) in terms of if our model can actually help them.
(29:30) We've been talking to some blockchain startups (29:32) and blockchain's a hot topic, (29:35) but a lot of times when we talk to these founders (29:38) and these startups, they want to do blockchain, (29:41) but we don't see that the way they're applying it (29:44) makes sense or has any real benefit. (29:47) Going back to the principle that, (29:49) from my point of view, you can build something, (29:51) but you have to be able to sell it. (29:53) You have to have a customer for that thing.
(29:56) And so we do a pretty deep dive analysis on that part.
