Tech Sales Network
The Tech Sales Network Podcast explores what it takes to win, grow, and lead at the sharp end of the IT channel - from managed service providers and resellers to the sales leaders driving some of the industry's most ambitious businesses.
Each episode brings together senior sales and revenue leaders from across the IT channel to share what's working right now - how they're building high-performing teams, landing new services, embracing emerging technology, and staying ahead in one of the most competitive markets in B2B.
It's a show about real deals, real leadership, and what it actually takes to thrive in tech sales.
Tech Sales Network
Stuart Harper : Optec
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What happens when you build a technical team first, a sales team second, and never take a penny of outside investment?
In this episode, Harry Driscoll sit down with Stuart Harper, CEO of Optec Services, to unpack how he took the company from a one-man operation in a rented room to a team heading toward 30 people, Fortinet's expert partner in Wales, without a business degree or a single investor.
Stuart talks openly about the early days of selling anything to pay the bills, the moment services became more valuable than hardware, why finding good salespeople has been harder than building a brilliant technical team, and the ongoing challenge of protecting culture as headcount grows. He also gets candid about the pressure that never really goes away, even when the business is doing better than ever, and why it took him three days to switch off on his first proper holiday in years.
Highlights:
00:00 – Starting Optec alone with no investment or business background
08:00 – Why the technical team came before the sales team, and why good salespeople are so hard to find
18:00 – Moving from reselling hardware to a services-led, security-focused business
23:00 – Protecting culture while scaling from a two-person team to 30
38:00 – Office culture, hybrid work, and where the balance sits
44:00 – The struggle to switch off and avoid burnout as a founder
50:00 – Growth plans for the next five years and advice for founders starting out
Host Links
Harry Driscoll: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-driscoll-170676b7/
Prince Talent & Resourcing Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prince-talent-resourcing-group/
Guest Links
Stuart Harper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/optec-stu/
Optec Services: https://www.linkedin.com/company/optec-services/
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Produced by Vertical Drop.
Working in London at another reseller, I decided that I can do this myself, and ultimately, with the products I was selling back then, you don't have to sell a lot of that product to pay your bills. And it looked really easy, so I thought, well, I'm gonna do this. In hindsight, it really was not easy.
SPEAKER_03Some businesses start with a plan, a pitch deck, and a room full of investors. This one started with a founder who backed himself and just went for it. Today on the Tech Sales Network, we're joined by Stuart Harper, CEO of Optech. No business degree, no outside investment, just a one-man operation. Built entirely from the ground up, and today a team on track to hit 30 people by the end of the year. Based in Cardiff, Stuart built OpTech into a business with a big ambition to grow further, and he's about to tell us why he's built his technical team long before he built a sales team. A decision that flies in the face of how most of the industry does it and one that's paying off. What you'll hear today isn't the polished corporate version of success. It's the honest one. The bumps, the graft, and the deliberate choice to build a business people actually want to work for, rather than one that just looks good on paper. This is the story of Optech and the man who built it his own way. Stuart, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much. I'm very good. A little bit nervous, but I'm happy to be here. Oh good. Looking forward to uh talking about myself for the next couple of years.
SPEAKER_03Take us back to the start.
SPEAKER_00Where did where did it all begin?
SPEAKER_03What did day one look like?
SPEAKER_00Oh it seems like well, it was a long time ago. It's 10 years now, so I've been running the company for 10 years. Um I was working at a another reseller based in London at the time and felt I could probably do a better job than what I was doing back then. I don't think they're on my LinkedIn CV, so it's fine. Um you can't find out who that was. But I I was gonna ask, but uh I thought, yeah, I could do a better job than this. But you know, in hindsight, it was a little bit crazy. Um back then I was lucky to have a few friends within the industry which I could rely on to help me from distribution and things like that. Working in London at another reseller, decided that I can do do this myself, and ultimately, with the products I was selling back then, you don't have to sell a lot of that product to pay your bills, to pay your mortgage and things like that. And it looked really easy, so I thought, well, I'm gonna do this. In hindsight, it really was not easy. Can't relate to that, can't be most, but it was um it was worth it in the long run, it's worth it. So, yeah, started the company, got out of London, had a little office in uh little town called Buckingham, just outside Milton Keynes. Yeah, nice. Um I just remember haggling for like the cheapest room I could get at the time, just so I wasn't working in my house. Yeah, just I just wanted anything and I was like, I'll I'd I'll get I'll get a discount on the room if I can fix the ceiling for you and stuff like that. It was that, you know, it was that much I was trying to save that money back then. Um and then it started started selling, started phoning up people I knew, started speaking to companies I'd spoke to in the past and things like that, see if they were interested. Um and just kept grinding basically.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's interesting because we we come from a very similar business type, albeit yours has been going longer, but we had those challenges where we we started in my in my dad's spare office, if you like, or my dad's office in his study in his house. Um and the barriers for entry of recruitment are incredibly lower. We just need a laptop on a phone. What were the challenges that you faced getting started as a an IT provider?
SPEAKER_00No, it's not, it's it's it it's exactly the same. Exactly the same. You you can become you can become you can start a business in IT easier than you could start being a hairdresser, for example. The the the the entry level is is pretty low. There are a lot of cowboys out there doing this, there are a lot of companies out there that fail doing this. It depends how you go about doing it. Whether you've got there at the start, it was exciting at the start because it's kind of like I've thrown everything into this. I was in a place in my life where I could do that, firstly. So I didn't take I wasn't taking I was taking risks, but I wasn't risking anything else other than myself at the time. Um so I think the the the the entry level wasn't that high back then, but that is probably a little bit down to me not really knowing how much goes into running a company as well. I just thought, oh, I can sell this myself, I'll make a margin, yeah, and then I'll pay my bills with that. And I didn't really think about tax implications, I didn't think about VAT, I didn't think about when it grows, employees, HR, and all this other stuff that's now that now consumes my life. I was gonna ask, do you not need certain vendor accreditations in order to s to start? Sales is sales, it's it comes down to, you know, at the end of the day. Back then it was a lot more, I'd say it's a lot more loose back then. You know, if I knew somebody in distribution and they were they could give me the discounts I needed, then I could play against the big boys. That's fine. Because I I I backed myself. I knew that I would give the customer service that that the customer needed. I would also make sure that I understood what I was selling as well. So I wasn't it wasn't a technical company back then, but I liked the technology, I had an interest in the technology. So I had a lot of.
SPEAKER_03Exactly and sell it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. There was a natural interest, a keen interest rather than I've got this thing, I don't really believe in it, I'm gonna sell it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um I suppose that sort of answers my next question, because the next question is with no like formal training or sort of structured company, what made you think that you could go and do it better than everyone else, really? Because the self-belief is you've already mentioned, but is there anything that like really stands out and you think, do you know what? This was this is gonna be I'm gonna hang my hat on this almost type thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, again, it was it's situational in that in that in that aspect. I was where I was before, the way they were doing the business, I didn't respect the way they're doing the business. Prior to that, I had another job at another reseller who were amazing. They're a technical sales company, and I learned a lot from them, and I've got a lot of respect for them and a lot of time for them. The second job I went on to where I thought I could do better than this, I'll give you an example. They were bringing in again, you'll you'll never find out who it is, it's fine, but they agree. They would bring marketing funds in um one month, and go, okay, go out and sell this, go out and get go and get some leads and things like that. And and so I was like, Yeah, okay, hit the phones, speak to people I know, get the leads, get the take it to the bosses. Oh, I've got this lead. Oh, yeah, we're not selling that anymore. We're doing this one now. And it's like we get marketing funds from these guys. And I was like, this is rubbish because how are we ever going to grow? Yeah, I've got you this opportunity, you don't care about the opportunity, you want the marketing funds to get your name out there. It's probably you know, they they had a plan, I'm sure that they did okay, but it wasn't the way I wanted to do it. I wanted a vendor and a technology that I could trust that I thought was good to be able to take that forward and sell that and make and make make a business off that. Yeah, at the time I did I never wanted to run my own business when I was doing this. It was just that I was looking at it going, no, you're doing this wrong, I could do this better. It was naive of me, but I was lucky. You're still sat here, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we'll probably we'll get onto it more later, but like you said, you know, being that Fortinet partner and and being a specialist in it and believing in what you sell is clearly the sort of story of optech by the look of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, there's the personal reasons behind it as well. As I said, I was in a position where I could do this at the time. It depends how deep you want to go into that one. But okay, well, I'll I'll talk about it because there is a crossover. Yeah, so the so so you need something to drive you. I needed something to drive me at the time. Um, and it actually was my two daughters. Um I've got three children, but Charlie's only five, so he's like I've only known him for five years, obviously. Um but Olivia and Penny, Olivia and Penny were the two that would drive me forward to to start the start the company. Um at the time my ex-wife she wanted to go back to university. And uh she asked if I could have we'd separate, obviously. Um asked if I could have the girls more. I was in working in London at that time and travelling back home every night, so that was quite long. So I thought, no, this is perfect. You know, I want to do this, I can actually have more time with my children if I'm not travelling to London every day and doing this every day. So that was the driver as well. Optech, everybody, oh, what is what what's what's optech? What it what does it stand for? And they operational technology. It's not, it's Olivia Penny technology. That's where the name actually comes from. So I need class, needed a name for it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course. And what's the reason you're opening it and starting it is is for my two girls. So that's so that's where it comes from.
SPEAKER_00Everybody thinks it's an IT related.
SPEAKER_03Do many people know that?
SPEAKER_00Probably not. I don't only want to tell internally. I think I tell it, you know, when I've had a few beers and things like that. It's not there now. It's not it's not, it's not, I don't think it's on the website or anything like that at all. No, it's not on the web.
SPEAKER_03I've looked through and that's the first I've obviously heard of it. So yeah, well, that's that's good. I like that. I like that a lot.
SPEAKER_00So that that that was basically the driver. Started this little company. Literally, I've got I probably did more marketing back then, but it's all on my iPhone myself. I haven't haven't ever shared it of me sat in this little office, you know. Oh, you guys are probably the same when you got your first office. You had got my laptop here and my calculator next to it, and all it's very Instagram and stuff like that. And we were on a box.
SPEAKER_03The office was twice the size of our desk. It was tiny, but we had a balcony, so we thought we were the bollocks.
SPEAKER_00Everything needs to be printed out, everything needs a folder, everything needs to go over there and look smart and business like. It's so funny. We never print anything. No, we'll get one anyway though, because it looks good. Exactly. Yeah, and that's what it was like for the first the first couple of years when it was just me and it, me, and me and the dog at first, and then um got so actually it wasn't, it was just me first, and then I got lonely in the office because you can not I'm speaking to customers, I'm speaking to distributors. I was like, well, this is still a little bit kind of still the same four walls. So that's when I got the dog. So the dog was the first employee, basically. He's still on payroll, don't answer that. Yeah, no, she's still yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Massive shareholder. Um, and then it started growing. So I employed my sister, she was working and she still works with us today. Okay. Um, so she started doing some admin work in the morning, and then I started employing outside the family and finding small people, and we coasted along for a little while just selling anything. Fortinet was always going to be the thing. That's where I had most of my connections, that's the technology I liked. Your passion in Fortinet as well. Yeah, and that was you know, that was that's what we were pushing. But at the same time, it's a startup company, you sell anything. Um, so we were saying laptops, desktops, mice, iPads, anything back then. You had to make ends meet to begin with, didn't you? Yeah, and that was yeah, we were never gonna make a killing on that, but it that's not the kind of company we were building. We don't do any of that anymore.
SPEAKER_03But back then, so would you use that as a foot in the door to then sell bigger products and bigger services? Yeah, that would sell to a recruitment agency selling 15 laptops on the basis then you would uh grow the account essentially. That's the idea. Yeah, in theory, yeah, on paper, that's what it would have been.
SPEAKER_00But in practice, it was more honestly again, you will know what it's like. You're just all over the place at the start. I've got to chase payments for this, I've got to send invoices out for that, and we weren't using I didn't use any like outsource agencies, it was all done in-house. I was very, very frugal at the start on what I was spending money on and things like that.
SPEAKER_03From your from your earliest memory almost, was the is there a standout moment there's a real bump in the road early doors? Or did you have, you know, is there something you go sh we've had one a big big dropout, so a big deal to drop that one. It was like half of our quarterly revenue. We sat there like shit. Yeah. Is that when the springs to mind is that of interest? There's loads, I suppose. There's loads. Some of them I won't share. Okay, yeah, if it's that big, don't worry about it. But no, some of them sort of like knocked you off course.
SPEAKER_00Massively, massively. So if you want to talk about it as a as a bigger picture, running a business nowadays is is tough. Yeah, I I I say I was naive going back into it 10 years ago, and I asked myself now, after 10 years of experience, would I do it again? Probably not. It's it's uh there's a lot of change.
SPEAKER_03Good question, actually. We should log that one for the next one. There you go. Would you do about it? Would you not would you do this again?
SPEAKER_00It's so much more to it, and it's hard, it's getting harder and harder. You've got Brexit. That happened. That would have just happened. That was terrible. That was like overnight the the exchange rate changed because I was buying things over you know in dollars, so the exchange rate changed. I lost margin straight away on deals. Um, there's obviously there's there's issues internally with staff that as they go with you know, you as your company grows, people have their own issues, they bring them to work and things like that. And that was new to me as well. I know I have my issues, and I've done that, but I kind of left them at home and I was always focused on the company. Yeah, but that's that that's new as well because people do bring it into work and without them realising sometimes as well.
SPEAKER_03People's situations affect them, they're in a bad mood, and you sometimes don't realise it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Arguably, I probably did bring it into work if you ask some of the staff back at the time. I definitely do, and I don't think I do. It says to me after about an hour, you okay?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Am I? I thought I was alive. I thought I did it well. After he's just screamed at me. Yeah, you haven't spoken to anything for 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. Yeah, probably, yeah. That's because people are missing their targets usually.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, um and on on um growth, like initially you you grew technically before you built a sales team.
SPEAKER_00No, it's weird. So yes and no. So we are a technical company, we've always been a technical company, uh, hence why I think we've done okay and we've done what we've done. So I was running the company for a few years with uh small staff, uh another salesperson. Um I can't remember how many had back then, but maybe three, four people. Um, and then I was on a project in London um working on deploying a load of access points and new switches for a customer. And I bought a contractor in at the time. Previously, we'd used a distributor to do all our professional services. We didn't have it in-house, I didn't have the budget to pay somebody to do that. Um, and I wasn't technical enough to go into an environment and go, right, this is how it's done, this is how it's always been done. And you know, I'm a salesperson at the end of the day. Yeah, sure. Um, so I was on a project and bought in a contractor who was amazing, absolutely amazing, technically, really nice bloke, terrible salesperson. Literally, just he came up with all these great ideas in his back bedroom and and write all these white papers and things like that, and nobody ever saw him. Just couldn't deliver or couldn't explain it. No, he's and there's plenty out there, yeah. There's plenty out there, but but on this project, it was like very clear that that we we clicked. And I was like, uh during the during the project, I'm gonna I'm gonna see what we can see if we can work again to work together again in the future. Um, services is obviously the way to go, the margins are a lot higher. It's getting harder and harder to sell tin because there's more. I said earlier, the the the bar for entry as a reseller is really low. You know, I could start up a reseller tomorrow and start selling things and make a bunch of money from it, probably. You wouldn't, you wouldn't, but you would go in, you'd have people coming in and taking all the margin out of selling tin just to just to win a deal to get the revenue. So it was very clear that professional services and managed services is the way to go.
SPEAKER_03So sometimes they would do it marginless in order to get the foot in the door in a bigger picture. Yes, uh project work. Yeah, hey, I'm guilty of that as well. We've all done that. But it's interesting to learn the other side of it. Like we I had an idea of how it works, but not to that extent. So you're saying like companies, competitors, and sometimes yourself will go in, make no money, sometimes potentially even lose money on a uh load of laptops in order to get the professional services stuff. You can be really disruptive.
SPEAKER_00You can do it, you can do it out of spite if you want to. You know, and I want to win this, I I I I I I count these people as my competitors, I'm gonna win this and and and upset them a little bit. That's not the best way to make money or do business, but you know, sometimes it happens. But as I'd going back to um that project and and Dave, who's my business partner for OpTech Services, this so this was about uh I'm gonna say five, six years ago, I think. Um it's all blurred into one. Um take him out for a steak and some wine in London after this project finishes, get him drunk, and then see if he wants to work together and start a services company. Um and that's what I did.
SPEAKER_03Sound too dissimilar, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's where we've got we've we've got we've got in our uh in our office in Cardiff, we have got like uh our staff room's a pub, and we have got on the wall a couple of like drinks, like uh flasks to say, and I've got a proposal for you. Sounds like I was gonna marry him, but it wasn't that. It was um, and that was it. That uh after that point, Dave came on board. All our professional services started going through Dave, and within I'm gonna say two weeks, he was, I need help on this. We got another professional services guy in working with Dave, and it's almost like starting again. Again, they were working in Dave's back bedroom trying to offer these services, and then week three comes around and goes, We need an office. Okay, we'll get an office in Cardiff, and then that's kind of where the company's kind of just rocketed. It just grew and grew and grew and grew to where we are now, and that's when we go services first, technical first. We invert we're very good. This is where you guys are gonna come into it. We're very good at finding technical staff and training technical staff. We've had people come from next and trained them up, we've had people come from with no IT background or no job, like no background at all, and trained them up. Uh, we've had people in the industry who just want to change and got them trained up on where we need them to be. We're very good at that. We're very good at making a very good, strong technical team. We can't find salespeople. You can't find salespeople. I've I failed time and time again. I have I have got some really good salespeople who've been with me for a few years now, but that's why we're using recruiters for the sales, the sales side. Sure.
SPEAKER_04And that shift towards uh being a service-led business, because I see now you're very heavy on security. Is that an easy shift from it? Seems to be the natural path is you start selling tin or shifting tin, then you transition into a service-led business, and now everyone is solutions and services, particularly security.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would just I think security, you can't, I mean, you can't get away from it. You can go into any your laptop's probably got antivirus on all these all these other things, but yeah, the this building here, I'm guessing. I usually walk in and look for access points to see what people have got and things like that. But I'm sure there's I'm sure they've got if it's shared IT services, there'll be a firewall here and stuff like that. And it is a it's a massive business. And there is always gonna be professional services, not always, but usually professional services attach to that. So a lot of companies can sell this tin, can sell the appliances and the licenses, but they can't deploy it, or they can't deploy it to the right standard. That's another thing as well. There's there are people out there trying to do this that probably shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_03We've we've had these conversations obviously in the past, but it seems that a lot of your competitors and a lot of companies in the market are sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. We've got a sales team of 25 people and they've got about four techies in the background just being worked to their bone and just under-delivering, oversold, over-promised, under delivered, and essentially then it's quite easy pickings for a stable technical company like yourself to come in and save it by the sounds of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, but we partner with bigger, bigger sales companies as well. That's a massive revenue stream for us as well. You know, we we to use you as their technical arm interest. That that's growing massively for us. Because we're really interested in doing that services side. We've built a machine that's very good at doing a specific job with a specific technology that is very, very highly regarded in the industry. Accidentally I did it, but we've done it. Tomorrow, you get there, you got that. So we so I've got this amazing tool, I've got this amazing team. Um, and and yeah, people people are selling this equipment and they need it deploying properly, and as it's a security uh application or appliance or uh software, whatever you want to call it, as it's in the security realm, it has to be done properly. Because if it's not done properly, what's the point now, having it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you start causing problems or or not fixing problems and causing bigger problems to companies that are better than data breaches, etc.
SPEAKER_00You can Google Fortinet in in in right now, and I I would imagine there's something called 40 bleed at the top, which is the latest thing we're dealing with. And Forty bleed, this isn't what the podcast has to talk about, but Forty bleed in essence is is not Fortinet's fault. Basically, there was a breach of the credentials, and it was uh mostly due to misconfigured uh firewalls. And that is that that's got to either be on the MSP or MSSP who's installed it, or the customers installed it wrong, or they've not maintained it. And that again is a big area of business for us because we'll we'll install it and then we've got the managed service as well to try and uh keep keep the customer up to date, keep keep them as secure as possible, really. You could again you can spend uh hundreds of thousands of pounds on this stuff, but if you don't look after it, what's the point?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that that MSSP piece, if you like, is the ongoing support. You've done the installation, obviously, that costs, but then you charge a monthly subscription almost just to keep it taken over to make sure they remain secure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, and from a services point of view, again, that's really important because if you go and sell somebody a so the way it works, if I if let's let's do it on the basic level, if I sell a Fortigate, so so we're gonna I'm just gonna talk Fortinet today because that's pretty much all we do nowadays. Um we do other things as well. Fortinet's largest partner in Wales? Only expert partner. Only expert partner. Sorry. I was trying to get in there at some point. Um but if we buy if we're if we buy a piece of tin and it's got license. Is on it and I'll sell that to you, and you'll get three years of licenses. And then three years later, I'll come to you and go, Oh, do you want to renew that? And you go, Yes, please, I'm so make more money. But obviously, everybody else is going to find out in those three years that you've got it, and they want the renewal as well. So it becomes competitive. But even those three years, if I can go, oh, we'll sell you this, we'll license it for you, and then we'll settle manage service contracts on it on top, and then we'll do QBRs with you as well. So we'll be speaking to you every quarter to make sure you're happy with it, and then we'll see other projects coming along and help you with those when they come to it. Oh, and it's time to renew again. We're already here. Yeah, it's a whole spend three years for a renewal list.
SPEAKER_03Exactly a bit different, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00And that's what we used to do is just like sell something and come back and be surprised when there's some some new guy on the block who like project work in the meantime. Our account management wasn't great. We're improving on that. But we've had the product for years, we just haven't pushed it out properly. We haven't told people we've got it. Um that's what we're doing now. That's why I'm doing this.
SPEAKER_03So obviously, we're a recruitment agency and we have lots of scaling businesses, we have lots of existing businesses, uh sorry, bigger, existing longer-term, longer standing businesses, if you like. One of the problems we find, especially in the acquisition uh mergers and acquisitions phase, but also scaling, is protecting culture whilst scaling. And I remember you've mentioned it before that something you're very, very big on is remaining the same from a two-person business to a 50-person business.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03I don't expect a magic wand, but how do you intend on keeping that important culture that you have? What is it what are you gonna do, or how do you plan on sort of just keeping it as it is, keeping that good culture you've already got?
SPEAKER_00Um so this could be my naivety in in doing this as well, but uh you're right. I do want to keep there's an element of of team, a massive element of team there. I want I want everybody to feel welcome, I want everybody to feel like we're we're we're pushing together for for excellence, really. I want I want I want OpTec to be seen as not a premium's the wrong word. I want I want people to think they're excellent. We are experts, I want people to see see us as the best, and I want the team to feel that they're the best as well when we're going through that as well. So we are quite picky about who we're taking in. We don't want to bring at the moment the people, for example, the salespeople we're bringing in, they've got to fit with the the way we're doing it at the moment. They have technical sales, they've got to have an interest in the technology, they've got to have a drive to make money. But what we don't want is blue suits and brown shoes rocking up with a history of going, oh yeah, this is this is how we do it, this is how I've always done it, and stuff like that. And I think I I I like to have people can come in and and want to mould themselves to fit with us and but are keen to learn as well. The opposite way, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03We learned that with the first few CVs we sent across, didn't we? It was a clear thanks but no thanks. I'm sure he could do the job, yeah, but yeah, I'm sure they could do the job however. I don't after a one call, not quite sure they're gonna be for us. Yeah, and it's quite refreshing actually because they come with really good numbers, and you knew that as well. And it was like, no, they wouldn't fit with us, and that's that's the most important bit, first of all. It's it's it's tough.
SPEAKER_00The so the reseller world, the world that we're in, I would say is the hardest. This is gonna annoy everybody who a vendor that's seen this, everybody's a distribution has seen this, but I would argue that the reseller world is the hardest bit to sell in because especially a small reseller as well. Yeah, um, if you're going in, we've got we don't, you know, I've got we've got no marketing presence really. We start, we're trying, we're getting there, but we don't have a massive budget behind marketing and things like that. We we thrive off doing a good job and word of mouth, which is a brilliant way to do business, really, because we've got loyal customers who always come to us because we do a good job, but that's slow, you know. Yeah, we're not we're not gonna get you so fucked. Yeah, we're not out there doing TikTok dances and stuff like that. We can do if you want later. That's an appropriate. Um, but that that's that's a that's a slow way of doing it. So um I would say finding the right salespeople, and again, I've seen this, I've bought people in that I've thought, oh yeah, they're gonna be great at this, and then they failed. And sometimes that's them. Sometimes I made a bad choice on that person hasn't fitted that, or I've expected more from them. Um and yeah, that's that I mean it is tough. We've got we as I said, we haven't got the marketing funds that the other companies have, we're not doing events all the time, we're not we're not we're not putting things on LinkedIn all the time and things like that. Arguably we should be, and we're trying to.
SPEAKER_03There has been a spike in that. I've noticed even the last like two months. Yes. From from your guy's side, there has been a spike in video approach yesterday, the 40 bleed thing.
SPEAKER_00I read through that earlier on today. Yeah. So you go. Yeah, so we have there's a conscious effort to do that. Yeah, of course. But that's still slow. Yeah. Um, whereas if you're if you're in if you're in vendor land, you've got the vendor's backing of, you know, we could look around here right now, and there's so many vendors here that have got you've got your microphone with sure on it. I'm gonna look around now, see nothing, but uh you've got a Sony camera up in front, the small rig holding it, HP laptop, HP laptop, all these different vendors who are gonna have so many leads coming in and so much business there because you can only get it from one person, kind of thing. Um distribution, they're basically getting all that from the vendor, goes to a distributor, so they've got to put it, put that out, and then you've got the resellers at the bottom just go, no, I want to win that, I want to win that. And we've got to get the customers' attention. Yeah, they've seen an HP laptop or a Sony camera, but it doesn't mean they have to come to OpTechs or buy it. Yeah, and we're all fighting each other. And that is a skill to learn, it is hard. Um, and you can either you can do that. There's two ways you can do that, is you can actually flood it with salespeople, so you just throw as much as you can at it.
SPEAKER_03Which tends to be the norm, to be honest, especially from our experience, obviously, you'll go more, but it is, isn't it? It's like, right, how are we gonna get more sales? Just hire more salespeople.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it works. We we haven't got the management structure to manage that. I'm the manager, nobody wants to be managed by me. I'm not, you know, it's I'm the manager, and we don't have that management structure, and it's an expensive way of doing it, really. That's a risk, riskier way of doing it, I would argue. Or you can do it the way we've done it, which is we've got to find the right people, we're finding bigger, more margin-rich deals, and doing it that way around, or specialist deals as well.
SPEAKER_03It's it's quite unusual to have the CEO still managing the sales people in a 30-person business. However, you don't strike me in any way, shape, or form as a micromanager. So, how do you build trust without micromanaging? I don't know. It's difficult. I struggle with it, don't I?
SPEAKER_00No comments. My team, my team are smashing it at the moment. I they're they're doing a brilliant job, an absolutely amazing job. This is probably this has been our strongest year so far. Good. And and and it's and it's mo and the profit levels, the profit margin makers, it's professional services, managed services are most of what we're selling now. The margin level is a lot higher, and the team are smashing it. And yeah, I don't micromanage them, I kind of trust them. I don't I don't know if that's maybe I should be more hands-on with them, pro possibly should be.
SPEAKER_03There's a difference though, isn't there, between being hands-on and micromanaging. And I think that a big difference as well, especially from the recipient. You can be hands-on, you can be helpful, you can be a wicket, the CEO sits in the office without being that micromanager of what you're doing at 9, 11, 12, you know. Yeah, there's a there's a big difference, and it's difficult, I imagine, to stay not micromanaging whilst also offering your support.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think it's that it comes down to respect at the end of the day as well. If we if we've employed the right people, if we're interviewing the right people, we give them a level of respect. But but it goes both ways as well. They have to respect our time, like Dave and I as business owners, we have something we need to do. You can't just disappear for half a day and go, oh yeah, I thought it'd be alright kind of thing. That's not right. Tell us what you're doing, that's fine, and you can go and do it. But you know, we're not you know, not their parent at the end of the day. I can trust these people to go out, and ultimately, as a salesperson, if you don't hear your number, it's quite straightforward, isn't it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So the plans for you then, you're you're nearing on 30 people. I think it was 20.
SPEAKER_00No, we're 20 now. We're 20, literally 20 from Monday. The plan is 30 by the end of this year, plus more if needs be. If we so we can we're coming to the end of the financial year. So it's weird. So we've we've talked about being a technical company, and that's great. I love the engineers, I think they're brilliant. I'm it's really easy to sell them because they're so good at what they do as well. I'll talk about that in a minute. But I I I love I love who they are, I love just working with them. They're nice people, um, they're really good at their job, and I can trust them. And I've got a lot of them. Um, but now we're starting to sell more, and now we're looking at investing in our sales team and using recruiters. We only use one recruiter. I was gonna say drop the flurrell. We only use one drop the flural, please. We only use one recruitment. Um recruit using recruiters is new. I've I've never right, you're not gonna like this, guys. I've never expected it before because to be fair, you've always maintained that from the from the first conversation.
SPEAKER_03But from the from the first conversation, you were like, I don't like the recruiters. And it it's fair because obviously that you know we could talk about this in a whole new episode, but we don't have a bad name.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you guys are these guys are great.
SPEAKER_03No, it's you can leave that in, George, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's been a pleasant experience actually working with you guys. We've tried so many times to find salespeople, and now we're having that sales drive. So we can have as many engineers as I like, and I can train them up to really high levels. You've got to have someone to put them out there. They want paying. I have to pay these people. There's nothing for them to work on, there's no job there for them to do that. Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we have to grow now, we need more sales. We've got we've got a product, we've got a service, it's really good. Very easy to say it's very easy to sell because it's good. Uh you still it's still competitive, but I need the sales team to be able to do that now, and that's that's the focus. So when we go 20 to 30 before the end of the year, a large chunk of that is gonna be sales. But as the sales come in, so say I take five more salespeople on, get them up and running, start making the margin, start selling more services, the guys at the back in the in the in the services team, they're gonna start creaking, and I can't do that. I can't let the the service levels we have drop. That's what you're built on, essentially, isn't it? Good service.
SPEAKER_03You've been that was what uh literally one of the first things you said to me, like we're full service because you gave me examples of competitors locally that are completely opposite, um, and hence why they're in a little bit of hot water currently, and that's the reason. It's um it's refreshing to hear it that way, to be honest. It's a balancing act, and but it you know, that's what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_00There's no magic wand, is there? But no, and and and going from 20 to 30 people isn't as scary as going from weirdly, going from 15 to 20 was that there was a there was a there's a kind of a plateau when we're at 15, and then you go to 20 to 20.
SPEAKER_03I get it. I can see that. Because then you're going from like in your head what you perceive as a great idea and a small fun business to shit, I'm a CEO now. Yeah, I'm I'm a CEO and this is my MD, and we're responsible for a lot of people's livelihoods, essentially, and it's there's a responsibility around that in itself, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oddly though, from from from having a couple of employees, you know, eight years ago, nine years ago, to having 20 now, the stress is exactly the same. I felt I felt as much that we I you'd think the pressure would go higher, but it doesn't. It's I the pressure was high back then. Thank God for that, eh?
SPEAKER_03I was just thinking of the same thing. Great. Because we're at six now, it's going to be seven, and hopefully it's follow up follow a similar path to you guys. Um if you're saying it's not going to get any worse, then happy days. You care, you care about the bills to pay. I suppose I've never thought of it that way. You're still pressured nine from eight in the morning until six at night. Like you're in work, it's the stress. You don't you always take it home with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's not going anywhere, and it can't get any worse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as long as you're making the money. So here's a question to you guys, and because obviously I've got a services arm, I've got people that don't carry a number, which I have to put a value on them. I'll say to the camera, you've all got a number on your head. So they bag them afterwards if you've got to. So for you guys, it must be different then because you really are sales how much back office and how much app in.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm not gonna say there is none, but obviously there are contracts and things, but well, this is this is something we we often discuss at at length, really, because we did have uh an ops person, and we brought her in and she was fantastic, ex-recruitment, lovely one. And she came in and she did the ops and she was full-time permanent five days a week. And unfortunately, after about a month of doing all the project, nitty-gritty stuff that we needed done and catching up, it wasn't enough for her to do. Far from it. Yeah, so we amicably parted ways, and hopefully, in in a year or so's time when there's enough to do, then she'll come back full-time. But to answer your question, we do it between us, yeah. Um, which does carry a load in itself because we've also got a number on our heads essentially, so yeah, it's it's difficult because there's no there's no almost like tech team and sales team. It's we're all recruiters and we just have to share it basically, don't we?
SPEAKER_04I do have a a question about um you mentioned being a specialist, being really helpful. Do you because you you you've talked about Fortinet a lot being you know the key vendor, do you work particularly with one vendor because when you build such a good relationship with them, you talked about leads and things like that. Once you become a specialist of that, you almost get walked into accounts.
SPEAKER_00Kind of, kind of. So when I started working with Fortinet 10 years ago, they were a lot smaller, a lot smaller. Yeah. And they had a drive to take on more partners and they would invest in small partners and and kind of so they like took me out to Vegas. They I got some. Oh wow, they really did invest in you. Yeah, well, I was I was pushing hard and I was kind of almost like actually my account manager at the time um was amazing. He uh I a good friend of mine, like now I've spoken to him today. Um, really good friend of mine, and he he kind of saw what I was doing and believed in what I was doing before I did, which is weird, but he did, and he kind of carried me forward, he got me invited to these events and things like that. Now, I was a different person 10 years ago. I didn't use them as networking events as I should have. I I I very much used the free beer and everything back then and had a great time, had a great time in hindsight. Hindsight, you know, I probably could have made more of the opportunity, but it was fun. Um but the but the cut but they they have grown, they've grown and grown and grown and grown. You know, they're they're doing great in in the industry they're doing, they're very good at either developing new products themselves and bringing that into their offering or buying a company, but actually integrating it properly uh into their offering. Um so as they've grown, we've kind of grown with it. With regards to the relationship, it's it's it was a lot closer back then. I was probably less professional. Well, I definitely was less professional than I am now because I had a smaller company to look after and it and and you know I didn't have I wasn't I wasn't nobody's looking up to me kind of thing. Um it's a bit different now. But the relationship has they've always supported us, they are great, but because they've grown, they are now getting bigger accounts, so they're they're dealing with some some huge partners and stuff, and and uh naturally, and uh everybody should do this, you know, at the end of the day, they're a sales company as well, technology company heavy focused on sales, they're gonna be selling to the big partners, they're gonna be giving the big partners their uh their attention. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing because we do a lot of work with some of the big partners and they come to us because we are good. So, yeah, we do get walked into accounts. We partner with a lot of the big partners to be able to enable them to sell more. Yeah, um, and I do have friends there still from old who are still there who would bring us through, but their sales team grew so much, I don't know everybody there. Yeah, I used to be able to move, you know. Yeah, I used to know I'm a lot closer, I knew a lot of them. Um but yeah, uh the my relationship with Fortinet and the business we've done that has definitely been built on friendships and and and and hard work and they trust us, yeah. You know, they know that they can put us a deal our way and the customer's gonna be happy to deliver, yeah. Um and that ultimately means more business for them. Of course, less complaints and that they're gonna come back to as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, fair. I think um the next one's an interesting one because we've already had this conversation this week, in fact. But with um COVID and and homeworking and everything that surrounds it. How have you um how have you dealt with and remedied and what I suppose what challenges have you faced post-COVID with homeworking and things like that? And getting people back into the office or not?
SPEAKER_00It was less getting people into the office. We because of the nature of what we do and a lot of our guys on the service desk, they had to be in the office anyway. So during COVID we had some big projects where the projects the project engineers were still out on site. We had a big school rollout for about I think it's 90 schools Wi-Fi um in Swansea uh and around Swansea, and they were basically allowed the schools were empty, so it was perfect time for them to go and install this. So we did that, and that kept us ticking through COVID quite nicely. Um coming back afterwards, and when we started concentrating on growing that service desk, you we don't like or we don't if you need to be at home for a reason, we'll be flexible on the service desk, but ultimately we like the guys in the office because they're working together, they're bouncing off each other. If one guy can't do it, then they'll pass it to somebody else. Um there's an there's an element of security as well, you know, that we're we're logging into people's networks and fixing their networks. I don't really want them doing that at home. Sure. Uh we have things in place to be able to offer that securely, but I'd still rather know that. Yes, they'll have them in the office. Um, the sales team, that's the the most difficult thing. So the majority of our staff are based in in South Wales, in Cardiff, in the Cardiff office. So we want to grow that that area, we want to grow in Cardiff. We're very proud of being in Cardiff. I don't live in Cardiff, but I'm very proud of having a company there. Um, I can talk about why we did that in a bit, but um they're all in the office quite a lot. It's the salespeople who are out and about. Now they have to go and see customers and things like that as well. But if they're not seeing customers and they're working at home all the time, bad habits creep in. You can oh you know, this week I'm not seeing anybody, so you just stay at home a week. It's like that's not healthy. I don't think it's healthy. Yeah, I as somebody who could work wherever you wanted to work. Um my company at the end of the day, I don't have to come in if I don't want to, but I couldn't do that. Honestly, it's being at home. I've actually find it harder of being a business owner, being at home by yourself, stuck in your own head.
SPEAKER_04We're in the office five days a week. Yeah, I can't work from home.
SPEAKER_00I make crazy ideas. I'm cra I come up with crazy ideas on my home, they won't let me do that.
SPEAKER_03So easy, other WhatsApp's in the easy well, I think I worked two days from home. I don't know why. I think we're in between office moves. Yeah, my missus came home and was like, please go back to an office somewhere. Like the house, I I thought I'd done all the dishes and done everything well. Yeah, like while I was working on the headset. Yeah, she was like, Everything's everywhere. Like, why is the toaster over there? Like, what are you doing? I was like, Put some trousers on and get out. Yeah, literally. It works. Yeah, it's um it is it's a different type of I think from from being in a buzzing office all the time, recruitment or sales in from your case, it's homeworking is a very, very different uh type of work, isn't it? But one thing we've stumbled across is people that have gone from school or university into COVID and had their first jobs in COVID in lockdown, that real struggle of transition coming into the office, yeah, and being in the office full time, like that sort of anxiety around travelling and anxiety around being in a big city and things like that. Is that something you've come across as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it happens. It happens to I think it happens to be supposed to it would happen, it would have happened to me if I was locked up all the time and not coming out. Then yeah, going in doing something like this, I'd be fearing it, you know. Yeah, and and I've seen it in the other stuff. So we have we have another office, we've got the Cardiff office, which is the the head office. We've just opened a Milton Keene's office um because it's near my house. Yeah, um, but it's easy for people to get to, you know, it's more central. We need to get into London. Usually it's half an hour on the train, you're in London. Part from today. Um you're you're in London and and you know, you're doing what you need to do, or you've got the M1 links there and stuff like that. So it's a good way to keep everybody in and it and keep you can Teams is brilliant, you know, that's fine, it works, but you you don't have the same conversations as when people come in the office, whether that's be you know, about what did you do at the weekend or you know what you what are you doing this weekend, or and then you automatically start talking about deals on top of that kind of thing, you get a lot more out of that.
SPEAKER_04There's a real battle between companies and and uh employees at the moment, though. We find you know companies want people back in five days a week if they could. Yeah. Um, and you know, employees are so used to this remote working that's become such a big thing that they want to be at home five days a week. So there's a real battle, sort of I think there's a shift definitely happening.
SPEAKER_03There's also an element of candidates we've speaking to lately. The companies that have gone fully remote, we're having candidates saying, No, I want to go into an office a couple of days a week. So it's like there's a real and I don't know if I'm allowed to say this or not, but it's an age thing. There's a clear generation that one wants to be in the office all the time, the other don't want to be in at all, and then there's an element of oh, let's do a bit of a Hybrid, but it tends to be if you told me this person without telling me their name and and and date of birth, for example, or without even telling me their I'd be able to roughly guess their age just based on yeah what what their hybrid requirements are to be honest. Typically, obviously it's not nailed on, but it's not it's not far off for sure. Holidays, do you get them often? No. I remember you saying what did you say the other day? It took you three days to actually switch off. Yeah, no, this is this is a massive thing for me at the moment.
SPEAKER_00And then you had the guilt around it. I went um where to start with it. So last last so actually during lockdown, the whole world wanted to get camp fans. Everybody is like my YouTube thing is just about people building camp fans and things like that. So I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna um I'm gonna build myself a camf van and and and and live in it. Uh but while living at home with my family, obviously, I can't just go off. But um so I last it was a couple of weeks ago, I went to I took it out for its first proper drive to France, and this was like this is the first proper holiday I've had in a long time. I've never done anything like this. This is this is an adventure for me, like just just just going somewhere, different country, driving on the other side of the road, and and and doing that was massive for me. Um and it took me probably three days to switch off. Like I I pulled up at this campsite, I was watching Ingam play one night, I've got a projector in there and everything. So it's probably it's not it's not I'm not slumming it. I've got you know Starlink in there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was well, I was gonna mention Starlink, so it was like a backup plan to be able to work, should you need to had my laptop? Did you work much, be honest?
SPEAKER_00The laptop was put away, but obviously you can work from your phone all the time now, can't you? You can't escape.
SPEAKER_03There's no escaping it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00No, but there there was a there was a point during that time where I was like sitting there watching the football, going, oh, this is fun, this is nice, and then you start thinking, you know, there's a bit of a lull in the game or something like that, and you start thinking, it's like probably should be doing something. I thought, hold on a second, I'm on holiday. Why should I be doing something? Why is there why have I got this feel feeling inside me that thinks I always have to be moving forward, I always have to be progressing the company.
SPEAKER_03The next question: what is it that just makes it so hard to for founders to not sit still? I don't think I'm the same, and it drives him insane. And he's that's he's similar, not as bad. He can switch off a little bit, which I'm jealous of. But what is it? Like, because I can't give you the answer, I don't know what it is, but just constantly.
SPEAKER_00I think it's I don't think it's necessarily negative, but it did strike me as a little bit sad. I was like, why do that? Yeah, why can't why can't I switch off? Why can't I enjoy something? What what is relaxing? And I was like, I've just I'll cook some food, then I'm gonna watch some football, and I know maybe I'll listen to some music or whatever. And I and I was like, Yeah, that's that's nice, that's something fun to do. That's what you do when you're relaxing. That's what normal people do. Yeah, exactly. I couldn't believe it took me three days to get to the point where I was feeling right. I feel great after it. When I came back, um I said to you, didn't I? I said, I want to I want to bottle some of that up and get that into every day. I w I don't want to get to the point where it's always a grind. Um, there's another part of that as well, which which I I learned about while I was away, because you get time to think, you know, I was travelling, it was 500 odd miles, whatever I did one day, and you think a lot. You can only listen to so much Spotify and it's a long playlist, yeah, exactly. So a lot of singing. Um when you start the company, it's all you're basically you're just selling yourself, you're putting yourself out there. This is the way I want to do things. As the company's grown, that can get, if you're not careful, can get lost. You get caught in process, you get caught in um people coming to you going, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this, this is a priority. And especially in our industry where I've got these this services team where it's all very much like IT, this is how it's done, yeah, this is how you have to do it. I'm a salesperson, and I don't know, you guys are probably the same. You have your way of doing things that may not be textbook, but you have you are a bit more flexible with those things. We work in completely different ways. Well, we've got to get the same results. Yeah, so Dave and I, he's on the technical side, for example, and sometimes when I get feel I'm getting just dragged into looking at ISO 27001 accreditations and cyber essentials and pay scales and tax and all this, and I go, Where's where where am I? Where have I gone? Where's the guy that where's the where's the guy that started this with the passion and the energy and the excitement and the ideas? If I lose that, then does Optech fail? Because that's what I started on. So that was another thing I picked up on. I wanted and it's kind of the same what you guys were saying, um, around that you get so caught in the weeds all the time running a business, you need to get away from that. You can't grow your business until you get away from that.
SPEAKER_03And I'm only saying the small stuff, isn't it? It's just you get so hung up on like a drop for us, it'd be a dropout, and for you it'd probably be like, I'm gonna losing out on a deal, and you think the world's closing on you. Realistically, that's just how it works, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's less so now. But it's also you you guys said yourself, you both hold a number on your head. I have I have a number on my head still. We need to, I I believe at some point we need to get away from that. I think you're always gonna have to do something as a as a small business, you know. 20 people, I still have to bring money and I still have to cover costs.
SPEAKER_04But it's I imagine it's hard to let let go of that as well in the same way.
SPEAKER_00I'm the top dog. I like I love being the top salesperson.
SPEAKER_04You you started it and it was you know, you were selling yourself. But at some point when the growth happens, you have to sort of get away from it being you and it being the business.
SPEAKER_03You have to learn, you have to learn who you are again as well. I'll be honest though, that the day that someone builds more than me or you in a month, I will be very upset. Like if there's a when there's a third person who does really well, I'm gonna I'm not gonna take it well. I think you'll be upset. Brilliant, I'm telling you, I'll be upset. You get used to it quick. It's an ego thing, absolutely. But I want it to happen, but at the same time, that first time I will be not very happy.
SPEAKER_00I'll be absolutely delighted. I've had it for years and I've always been the top, but but recently, the this this year, the with the way the sales team because they've got such a good product to sell, because they're backed by such a good team, it's so easy to sell. If you're given the opportunity, it's very easy to sell. It's getting those opportunities, that's the hard bit. Yeah, um, so yeah, it's a nice feeling when somebody overtakes you. But you're you're still the boy.
SPEAKER_03I guarantee it will be nice, but I don't it will be an ego here. You're still paying the wages, yeah. True. I know. I think it'd be brilliant, honestly.
SPEAKER_04I can't wait. Yeah, you go.
SPEAKER_03What does success look like to you and to optech over the next five years? It's a generic question. I know.
SPEAKER_00Um, I I to be fair, again, this this we're coming to the end of our financial year at the moment, and it's been our best year to date. We've got some really strong partnerships with some other resellers. We want to continue to grow on that. We are obviously growing our team, so I want the team to continue to grow. Um and this is probably gonna be the first year coming up where we're gonna have proper financial targets and going like we did this, we turned over this. I don't really care too much about revenue, but it's still a good target to look at and keep growing at. Um, and I think for the last few years, this is this is how naive uh I am as a business owner or as a director or CEO, whatever, is that we all we've done is just continue to do hard, just work hard, work hard, work hard, work hard. And luckily, well not luckily, it's from the work hard work, but it every year there's been an increase in profit, there's been an increase in revenue. I just want that to keep going. But this coming year and the the years following, now we've got all that data, now we've got the team in place, we've got the product in place, now we're growing a sales team. I want to see that shoot up because we'll focus on it. It happened, it happened you know, by accident, not accidentally, it was you know, it happened by proxy of the hard work we were doing at the time. But we want to I want to see what happens if we focus on that, increasing that, increasing the amount of customers we've got, um and seeing where we can go with that. So it's just more growth really over the next five years.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fair. And I suppose the flip side of the generic question is if you were starting again or if it was you starting ten years ago, what is the uh number one bit of advice you'd give yourself?
SPEAKER_00Just believe in in yourself, trust yourself because that's what I did that that time round and get there, just keep pushing. And also it's not gonna be smooth. There's gonna be issues, there's gonna be issues, but ultimately every every problem that comes up is gonna be an opportunity. You if you look at it like that in sales, that's the way I would look at it. Yeah, you know, if you if something goes wrong with a customer, for example, and there's a problem, I look at it and go, Well, I'm speaking to him now. He's replying to my emails, yeah. You know, I've got I've got an opportunity here to to put this right, to make this good. So, yeah, all these all everything that that that can happen can be fixed. Yeah as long as you're not breaking any laws, obviously. Keep it legit. Yeah. That wouldn't be my that wasn't my butt 10 years ago. Keep it legit. Don't break any laws. Well was it break the laws 10 years ago, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03I think the underlying statement was nothing's as bad as it first seemed. Yeah, yeah. There you go. I've done GPT for that for you. I don't know about you, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the last hour or so. Yeah, it's gone really quickly. Thank you for for joining us and uh let's go for a beer. Let's do it. Excellent.
