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Every day, we at Hutchison PLLC work with founders and entrepreneurs as they fight and grind and stress and push to bring their visions to reality. We are inspired by their incredible stories of success, of failure, of reworking and trying again.
Ardis Kadiu: [00:00:00] So I walk in and I'm really excited about the product and um, so I showed 'em all these things and they asked me some questions. I'm like, no, no, no. That's not the way you're supposed to do it. This is the way you do it. I walk outta there. I thought, I was like, wow, this, these people probably think I'm crazy.
I don't think I'm gonna get this account. Turns out that that's today our, has been our best account and some of the best relationships, uh, that I've had with the people on, on the other side.
Trevor Schmidt: Hello and welcome to the Founder Shares podcast. We're so happy that you've chosen to spend some time with us. I'm your host, Trevor Schmidt. I'm an attorney at Hutchison, a law firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. We work with founders and entrepreneurs in technology and life science companies. Startup, operate, get funded, and exit.
We are daily inspired by the people we work with and want a chance to share some of these stories with you, our listener. So. Whether you're already an entrepreneur, want to be one someday, or are just fascinated [00:01:00] by the stories of how a business goes from idea to success or not such a success. This podcast is for you.
Today we have a special edition of The Founder Shares podcast, recorded as a live episode as part of Walk West's podcast Marathon. On August 21st, we were very lucky to be joined by founder and CEO, Ardis Kadiu of Development 4 51. Ardis shared his journey from a marketing agency to founding and leading an EdTech company to $175 million strategic exit in 2024.
We discussed the key decisions to adopt AI before it was a household term, and how Element 4 51 turned the COVID-19 pandemic into accelerated growth. We'll also get Ardis' unique perspective on the grind of entrepreneurship and his keys to success. In November, 2024, element 4 51, a Raleigh based company providing a higher ED CRM and student engagement platform received $175 million strategic investment from the private equity group, PSG.
We're thrilled today to have on Ardis Kado, the founder of the company and [00:02:00] on the Founder Shares podcast Ardis. Thanks so much for coming on and being a part of this, uh, walk West Podcast marathon.
Ardis Kadiu: Thanks, Trevor. It's great being here.
Trevor Schmidt: Uh, so Artis, take me back to the very beginning. Uh, tell me what was the motivation for starting Element 4 51?
Ardis Kadiu: So, element was actually a spinoff, um, prior, uh, had a marketing agency, which, uh, we were trying to solve this problem of. Um, uh, student recruiting for, for a lot of schools. Uh, if you remember, you know, you, I don't know if you had anybody go to college, um, or you know, a friend or anybody, but you know, back in the day I used to get like all this mail in.
And it's all very generic, right? It just had the name of the school. So we were trying to make it more personal and we were trying to bring the school's brand out there to engage those students better. So we started building the software inside of the marketing agency and then, uh, I was one of the partners there.
Then I spun it off into, uh, into the product. So it was, um, it was kind of continuation of solving that problem, student personalization or student engagement at [00:03:00] scale, more personalized.
Trevor Schmidt: And so was your background with the, with the marketing primarily, or did you have that background in education or how did you kind of come to?
So I'm an
Ardis Kadiu: engineer by trade. Mm-hmm. So I, I, I went, I have a computer engineering degree, but then I did, uh, digital media and then I actually went and got an MBA after that and worked on the university side for, for a number of years. Uh, while, while doing that and then founded the agency, like that was the, the path.
So I saw the problem and then founded the agency and then. Services, businesses don't scale, so you gotta do software. Okay. So move to software after
Trevor Schmidt: that. So, so at what point in time did you realize that you know, that the idea that the service isn't gonna scale like you wanted it to? I
Ardis Kadiu: mean, when my partners were saying, alright, we, we just need to take some profits out of this, like we're putting everything under software.
So, so there was that, that friction between, uh, you know, how much, how much margin do we wanna take out of the, uh, business in terms of, and or how much do we want to invest in it? And then we needed, uh, an external, um. Money. So that's, that was the impetus for kind of spinning it off and, and kind of building a separate company.
Trevor Schmidt: [00:04:00] Yeah. And, and I'm always interested in the question, even though it's one thing to identify the problem mm-hmm. And realize it's there another thing to identify that you have some skills that's, but what led you to believe like, no, this is a problem that, that I can really tackle, that I could create a business around.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, I mean the, we essentially had a lot of, uh, demand for, for that, right? So, uh, we saw the problem firsthand and when you're in it every single day, and there's really nothing out there at the time, there was nothing. So the, the hotspots of the world or the. Marketing sales clouds of the world didn't exist.
Uh, so it was a really underserved industry and, uh, we, we thought we could do it, you know, really, really well. So we started building, we actually built for ourselves. So that was the, that, that's how we started. And then, uh, we saw, okay, this can be used now by a lot more people, uh, and can be self-service.
So building for yourselves is actually a really, really good way to, uh, to see if that, that problem actually has. Market fit. [00:05:00]
Trevor Schmidt: And how did you, like, take that process of when, when you're building for yourself, it's kind of obvious what the problems are, right? Or where you need to iterate. Um, but how do you then take that out and kind of learn from your customers, I guess?
Yeah. Or learn from the potential customers.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, that was the toughest part, like spinning out the company, um, going after customers, uh, when you didn't really have a pipeline already and now starting to learn. It's like, oh. This feature that we thought was going to be really useful, and we used it as power users.
Now to a regular user, it seems very complicated, so we need to rethink that. Um, but, but it was, it was tough in the beginning. You know, our first year we, um, it was a slow, a slow grind because we had to kind of pivot and, and try to figure out, okay, how do we build this thing so we can, uh, market it better so we can, you know, actually.
Have end users, um, come in and start adopting it. So that was, that was the learning process in that first year.
Trevor Schmidt: So think back to your first customer. How did that kind of come about? Or and, and how did that relationship get started?
Ardis Kadiu: So we had a few customers, uh, from the agency. So the [00:06:00] agency was still a customer, a big customer of ours.
But I remember early, in the early days, we used to respond to a lot of what our RFPs, or what are called request for proposals. And these are like huge documents and this as finalists, uh, you actually need to go to campuses. And I remember going to, uh, one of the first ones it was in, um, it was in. Uh, I had to fly to St.
Louis and then I had to fly down to Southeast Missouri State, uh, university in, uh, Cape Gerardo, and it was, uh. It was an interesting one. Um, so I went there. I was the only one as the founder, obviously, we didn't have a lot of resources to fly a whole team or anything like that. And I walk in and there's a classroom style, you know, and there must have been like 30 people Oh my gosh.
In this presentation. So I walk in and I'm really excited about the product and um, so I showed 'em all these things and they asked me some questions. I'm like, no, no, no. That's not the way you're supposed to do it. This is the way you do it. I walk outta there, I thought, I was like, [00:07:00] wow, this, these people probably think I'm crazy.
I don't think I'm gonna get this account. Turns out that that's today our, has been our best account and some of the best relationships, uh, that I've had with the people on the, on the other side. So it was, uh, yeah. That's amazing.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So any other kind of fond memories from those early days of the company?
Ardis Kadiu: Um, so when we started our offices were actually in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and, um, we, so DUMBO stands for down under Brooklyn, Manhattan Bridge Overpass, which is like a mouthful, but, uh, it was literally right on the water. You see the Brooklyn Bridge on one side. You see Manhattan Bridge on the other side. Uh, it's actually very picturesque.
Our building was right next to this very picturesque, like everybody takes pictures with a bridge in the background. So, um, so, so we had an office there. Um, and the early days were really, really intense because, um, I had, I had a young, um, my, my daughter, uh. So I had two young kids, so I had to go back and forth, but, but it was really great because we were [00:08:00] surrounded by this amazing agencies.
Hmm. Um, so like Big Spaceship was there and um, um, you know, a whole bunch of other, uh, agencies that were building really cool stuff. So the early days were. Like we, we thought we were real startup, right? Mm-hmm. Right. You know, even though, uh, so, so it was pretty, pretty cool. Uh, and then you walk in and, and you're kind of seeing people from all kinds of different places, but it's all in that tech, uh, you know, tech scene.
Trevor Schmidt: And how big was the team at that time?
Ardis Kadiu: Uh, we were small. Like we're under 10 people. Yeah. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: And so as you think back, is there something kind of in those early days that you would've done differently now, kinda looking at it, or what did you learn from that time?
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, it would've been more, you know, I would've been more intense around, um, kind of the go to market side and, and the marketing side.
I think, I think that's an area where, um, we did spend some time, most, most of the time on our product. And because I was a product, uh, focused, you know, founder, uh, I could have just done a lot more on the [00:09:00] marketing and sales. I, I feel like that could have accelerated our, our timeline by at least two years.
Mm-hmm. In terms of where we were. Um, but you know, again, the product is very, very strong now. So, you know, you, you, you don't know. I was gonna say, you invested on one side and
Trevor Schmidt: it turned out it turned out pretty well for you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so what were some keys to successfully grow in the company?
Where would you kind of. Stake that.
Ardis Kadiu: Um, I think it was a grind, uh, in the beginning and we didn't hit our first milestone when we got our seed round. So I moved down here to the Raleigh area, um, up in Wake Forest. Uh, uh, we had a small engineering team here, so I moved down here in 20, uh, late 2018. Um, and.
We, it, it took us, it took us about a year to find our seed rounds. So, uh, but once we did that, uh, we partnered with Co-Founders Capital with, uh, David Gardner there, and he, [00:10:00] he kind of. You know, give me a little bit more direction around the, the things that we're focusing on. Um, you know, focusing on the problem, focusing on the customer, and it's like, Hey, focus on the value that you're delivering.
Uh, is like this, this one thing that I still remember is like, Hey, Ardis is like. You don't give somebody, like, they don't care about your features or anything like that. Just like if you have a green pill and you give it to them like that, that's what they're gonna buy, right? If it gets the same outcome, um, as all your features.
So think about it as the outcome. So that, that kind of stuck out with me. So, uh, the, the process like. Of going through that seed round. Mm-hmm. I feel was, was really, um, enlightening because I had talked to almost a hundred plus different funds from all over the place and they didn't really, uh, see the product or even, uh, ed Tech was a little bit of a, a weird market back then, not a lot of people.
But then once COVID hit, uh, EdTech became a really, really hot. Uh, [00:11:00] space, so, well, I mean, it's pre 2020 was, it wasn't that hot. Yeah. Well, I
Trevor Schmidt: mean, talk to a little bit about that. 'cause I mean, as a, as an ed tech company or as a, a company that's serving. College campuses. Yeah. And, and all of that. And all of a sudden the transitions that happened around COVID, talk to me a little bit about how you navigated that and kind of what that process was like.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah. W well, everybody at the time it was, um, all of the campuses shut down, right? Mm-hmm. So all the campuses shut down. Our, our clients were, were in panic mode. Some of them had transitioned a lot of their processes online, so they were actually really in a really good spot. But then. We were getting inbound, uh, customers, um, saying, Hey, we just have paper processes, so we need to kind of adopt something so we can digitally communicate with our students, we can engage them better.
So things started to accelerate for us, but there was a period of time where we thought, hey, the things were gonna get a lot worse. Um, and during that time it was basically. You know, we, [00:12:00] I went without a salary for about six months. Mm-hmm. Uh, so we had to make some tough decisions. We, we kind of laid off about 40% of the, of the team.
So the team wasn't that big to start with. So, so the numbers were, were impactful. Um, and that was kind of the, from the advice on the, uh, on the board side. Hindsight, right now, we came out. Pretty, like a lot stronger. So, so that was, that was a, a, I would say a plus. It kind of gave us an excuse to say, okay, who do we really need at this time?
Um, so that was, that was really good. But COVID was really an accelerant for us, so it was an accelerant obviously. Um, but from a management perspective and a cashflow perspective, like it was a, it was a good six months plus, uh, lagging effect. Um,
Trevor Schmidt: and, and do you think that kind of the accelerant process that you mentioned, that just.
Expanded the adoption of, of the product. I mean, we're more tools. It gave us a lot
Ardis Kadiu: of speed. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we, [00:13:00] we saw basically the timeline of adopting, uh, an engagement system like Element. Um, and, and even some of the and AI tools that we're using and so on and so forth, we starting to build, we saw a huge accelerant.
Mm-hmm. So if, if COVID wouldn't have happened, that would've been, universities would've. It would've taken another five years to be where we are today in terms of their mindset shift and how they're thinking about, uh, student engagement and, and how they're thinking about the digital transformation part of it.
So it, it definitely accelerated.
Trevor Schmidt: Now, tell me a little bit how you thought about that process from, as the CEO 'cause you have customer relationships, you have to manage, you have to think about how you're building up product and how you delivered that at the time. But then you're also a, a people manager, so how did you address that as a CEO?
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, I, I mean, I don't know. I mean, as a people manager, um, I, it's, I didn't think too much about it, right? I didn't, it was, you know, one of those things where I just focused on, you know, execute, execute, execute, [00:14:00] and I just really cared about. Like the, the product I cared about, what we were delivering to our customers.
I cared a lot about the customer, right? Mm-hmm. What they thought, how, how they got the value. 'cause I was actually in their shoes working on the university side before. Um, and they kind of translated into people. Feeling, uh, a sense of, uh, kind of, you know, this, this mission that they had to, so it was, it was very mission driven, right?
Mm-hmm. Um, so the, the people management, I've always had to work at it. Like, I don't have the, the biggest eq so. Uh, you know, I'm pretty direct and I'm pretty, pretty to the point. Mm-hmm. Uh, I like to be challenged and, and I like to talk things through, so that can be intimidating for a lot of people. So my team has been, the people who have been with me, they have been with me for the longest time because, like we work really well together.
Um, but yeah, you have to, I had to bring in additional people on board and that was one of the [00:15:00] areas where, uh, I've, I've kind of. Knowing what I know now, I could have made better decisions back then, especially in, uh, like go to market leaders for example. So very early on I brought in, uh, sales leaders and I just didn't know what to look for, right?
I, I, I basically said, Hey, experience over kind of grit or, or experience over, so they're coming from a different perspective and, and that didn't really jive really well. Um. And, and the results were just not there. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: Well, that's always a tough process, you know, trying to get the right team in place.
Yeah, exactly. Well, you had mentioned something about kind of the, the AI aspects of, of the software kind of on an early on basis. Do you think that was key to kind of some of the success of the product?
Ardis Kadiu: Oh, 100%. So one of the things that, you know, when you're dealing with kind of student engagement, uh, a lot of schools have to, you know, they, they have hun thousands, sometime hundreds of thousands of students that they're trying to [00:16:00] recruit.
And knowing where to pay the attention to was really, really important. So personalization became important, but also, uh, prioritization. So we did a lot of. Early on we used predictive modeling quite a bit. Mm-hmm. So a lot of early ml. So this was, um, you know, 2000 5, 6, 7, like even in the agency world. But then in the product we had built this ml, uh, ai, early AI stuff.
What happened was, uh, we needed to produce a lot of content. So very early on, uh, we kind of latched onto some of the big mo uh, el, uh, large language models, right? Uh, this was even pre GPT, you know, pre-chat GPT when they started to work with, um, like this was like the Bert models and, uh, like GPT-3 just had an API, but there was no, no product yet.
So we started to explore those pretty early because we, uh. We needed to generate content, right? And that's the only way you can scale. Uh, so we started very early on with that process. Uh, it played a huge role, uh, [00:17:00] in terms of how early we brought products like AI products, like our chat bot came in the market as soon as GPT-4 was there 20.
2023, uh, that March, we already had a product, uh, on the market with our, with our chat bot, which was a lar large language model based chat bot with GPT, uh, or GPT-4 at the time. Okay. Yeah. Three, five, and then we moved to four. Uh, so yeah, I, I think that played a big role and, and we were learning quite a bit, you know, as part of that process.
Um, and, and no, none of us had worked with those models before, so, right. Um, so we were learning really, really quickly and what we found was a lot of different ways and patterns and techniques that now you go back and you say. Oh wow. You're like, there's, that's known right now. Right, right. So like you do rag and you do this and you do that, but back in, you know, back in the day, like we're talking years, it's actually two years ago, um, we had to kind of invent a [00:18:00] lot of that.
Trevor Schmidt: Well, and, and talk to me a little bit about kind of getting customers comfortable with that. 'cause even now with some of like the, the big name AI people are just uncomfortable with the idea of having to generate content. So you were kind of at the forefront of that.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah. One of the things that we, I realized very, very early on is, uh, we needed to educate the market really, really fast.
So, uh, we went all in on ai, not just on the product, but also, uh, elements specifically. We decided to actually lead with. Uh, training. Um, so I started to do a lot of webinars. I started to do a lot of training. I had, uh, prompt engineering courses out there. I was actually speaking to, uh, dozens of conferences and the conferences that I talked about.
Prompt engineering and how to use chat, GPT and how to use these large language models. They were packed. They were always packed. Mm-hmm. This was the early, again, the early days, like early 20, or late 20, 23, early 20, 24. Um, and a lot of people didn't really understand how these things worked. Right. [00:19:00] So, so part of it was for me to.
To demystify and talk to them about, okay, this is how they're built and this is why they hallucinate. And this is, you gotta put the right context in place and you gotta put the right guardrails and this is how we build our product to kind of eliminate that. And that helped us a lot. Mm-hmm. Right. And, and right now that's been one of the things that Element is known for is kind of that, that AI innovation.
And then you talk to a lot of higher ed. Um, you know, practitioners and, and that's the thing that's going, that comes up. Right. But it was intentional because we, the market didn't know anything.
Trevor Schmidt: Right. Well, it sounds like a lot of education had to go into it. It had a
Ardis Kadiu: lot of education. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: So tell me a little bit about, I wanna move to the transaction now.
Yeah. So what.
Ardis Kadiu: What
Trevor Schmidt: made you decide it was time to really kind of pursue a big transaction? Or what was the thought process behind that? Yeah, so,
Ardis Kadiu: you know, I, I, I'm very goal oriented, right? Mm-hmm. And we always had, I always had the goal in my mind. I'm like, as soon as we get to this a RR, we're going to, um, like we're gonna go through a transaction.
So [00:20:00] we're gonna go through an acquisition. Or an exit, I guess that's what we're calling and we're gonna call it an exit. Um, and then we didn't know exactly what that was going to be, but we're monitoring the market pretty closely in terms of, um, hey, at which point do we, do we go out in the market? So we were, we were, we hit that 10 million mark and then we were, uh, beyond that 10 million mark, and there was just a lot of market demand.
Okay. So, so at the time. Of course, um, this was last year. This was 2024. Uh, I had been talking to people in early, in late 23, 24, just because of the ai, what we were doing in ai. A lot of people were, were really interested. Um, and then we started a process, right? So, so at that time, we hit our mark and we're like, okay.
Let's, uh, let's go in the market now and let's, let's start our process.
Trevor Schmidt: Well, tell me a little bit about that process. What was your role, kind of as the CEO and what was your involvement with it?
Ardis Kadiu: So, act we, we started the process and I was like, you know what? I, I have, [00:21:00] you know, a lot of demand, so I'm gonna do it myself.
Okay. And so we went into the process. I, I pick about 10 different. Um, 10 different parties and we start the process and pretty soon I get inundated. You know, I actually talked to, to Justin Hutch and I'm like, uh, and he's like, Artis, uh, you know, that's gonna be a lot of work for you to actually manage all of this.
He's like, we certainly can help from our side, but so, and I get all these meeting requests, it's like, okay, due diligence for this. Mm-hmm. And we have our data rooms and so on and so forth. And very soon I realized, you know what? I just, I can't handle this by myself. I need a banker. The other part was you, you, I didn't want to be the person responsible for like, leaving money on the table, so to speak.
Right, right. So that's another thing. So I wanted to be a good, um, fiduciary and like, so we hired a banker and then we, we started. In the middle, they helped us with a little bit of the process, uh, which, uh, we decided to kind of [00:22:00] pull back and say, okay, you know what, uh, we're not gonna finish it, so let's, let's kind of go another quarter and go in the market again, um, the right way.
Mm-hmm. So that's, that's what happens. So the banker, uh, put together obviously what they do best, which is the demand, um, and the sip and all that. Uh, and then we go on the market. Meanwhile. Our revenue keeps growing. We had our best quarter. Uh, and things, things are just going really, really well. Yeah. Um, so that's that's great timing.
That's awesome timing. Exactly. So how
Trevor Schmidt: did you end up working with PSG? What was the, um.
Ardis Kadiu: So PSG had been interested before as part of the very early on, so we had to cut those conversations, but, uh, ended up happening was it was, it was a very competitive process. Uh, we, uh, when it came to the end, we had about four different parties that were very interested.
And one of the things that we, the banker did is basically do run everything in parallel, [00:23:00] all the diligence in parallel. Um, all of the different, uh, diligence tracks, including kind of purchase agreements, having everything marked up. Mm-hmm. So, so there was really a lot of certainty on deal closure and, uh, you know, PSG was, um, there was a connection, uh, with our prior, um.
Uh, one of our prior, uh, board members, uh, but they, you know, they, they, they were part of the, um, party that submitted an LOI and they were like, we can close within. 48 hours. So, and they were early and it was great. Uh, but then when it came to the end of it, uh, it was just a very competitive process going back and forth.
And the bankers do what they do best. And, um, you know, we, we, it was a board decision that ultimately at the end, but they, they, uh. They had a really good thesis, um, around the growth and, and kind of what element could [00:24:00] be, uh, they had done work in net Tech before and that was part of the reason why we went with them.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Well, tell me about the kind of the actual process itself. 'cause it wasn't 48 hours, but it was a pretty condensed, uh, kind of closing process once you start working with BSG. Right.
Ardis Kadiu: Um, it last actually 24 hours. Okay. So there we go. You did it even faster. So we went into exclusivity with 'em and we, we closed within 24 hours.
Right. Which is just insane. It was crazy. So we went to exclusivity, uh, I don't know, seven or eight at night. And then I, by the next day, it was the day before Thanksgiving. Uh, so it was the, so we would go into exclusivity on Tuesday, on Wednesday at uh. Three, 3:00 PM Eastern. We have all the documents and everything all signed and we hop on a Zoom call, which is supposed to be the, the closing meeting.
And it was so anti climactic, which the lawyer, you guys, the hutch on one [00:25:00] side, uh, and then. The PSG uh, lawyers on one side, and it's like, do you release the signatures? And everything is like, yes, I do. Yes I do. And I'm like, is that it? We did it right. All done. That's it. Yeah. It was very anti-climactic. But,
Trevor Schmidt: well, I mean, so like, I mean, after the closing though, did you do anything to celebrate?
Did you It
Ardis Kadiu: was great because, uh, I had my family coming in from New York and we were doing, we were hosting Thanksgiving the day, the day after. So it was a, it was a great, it was a good one.
Trevor Schmidt: That's good. Good to tell '
Ardis Kadiu: em in person that this thing happened. Well that's amazing.
Trevor Schmidt: To be able to celebrate with family.
Yeah.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, it was really great. It was really great.
Trevor Schmidt: So is there anything that you learned kind of through that process that you'd kind of wished you knew before you'd gone into the transaction process?
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, it's, it's very intense. Mm-hmm. Um, one of the things that we did really well was we had everything kind of in order, uh, from prior c you know, from the seed round, uh, to, uh, to a round to B round.
We, we essentially were building the business in a way that, um. We had [00:26:00] all those different tracks and diligence and everything was tied, tied up. Um, so one of the things that I wish I would've known a little bit more about is, um, you know, the, the different components that are, like how the different, uh.
Buyers are valuing mm-hmm. Your, your different metrics, right? Uh, are they valuing the, uh, you know, the technology track more? Are they valuing your, your a RR or are they valuing your growth or your, their retention? So we had to have a lot of conversations to explain to people how the business actually worked or the industry.
But also in terms of things like churn and so, so those things, we spent quite a bit of time, um, whereas in my mind I thought, okay, there's the growth path here. Mm-hmm. Um, you can talk to all of our customers and the market, you know, you can basically tell you, but they couldn't get around their head around some of the, uh, you know, retention components.
And, and that was. [00:27:00] That was something that if I go back, I, I would've done a better job earlier on doing the explaining rather than wait later. So you felt like it
Trevor Schmidt: was something that you could have kind of laid the groundwork for earlier? Absolutely. Yeah.
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we looked at, I mean, we had really high retention, but it wasn't the traditional SaaS where, because we had really long, um, kind of contracts mm-hmm.
And. They thought, well, most of your customers are not coming up for co for renewal, and because you're growing so fast, they're not due for renewal for another year or two. Like, we just don't have any retention data. Yeah. And we're like, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute. Like our, we let our customers out of our contracts, even though they're longer contracts.
So we had to go back and forth and kind of, you know, figure that out. But, um, if I would've known a little bit earlier, we, we could have done a better job of, of it.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Well, I understand you recently announced that you're actually gonna be stepping away from your involvement with Element 4 51. You wanna talk a little bit about that?
Ardis Kadiu: Yeah, so I mean, remember that was the golfer [00:28:00] exit. Yeah. You had your goal, you made it. So I met the exit. Um, one of the things that got me really excited about. Uh, over the last couple of years as we were working on Element is how, how important AI and agents, so Element is now transformed completely and, uh, from a platform of engagement to now, uh, being an agent platform for higher education.
So we're building agents for higher ed. For serving students, for, uh, doing marketing, recruiting, engagement, student success. Uh, so agents to do a lot of different application management, so building agents and looking at the, how powerful they can be, uh, in any vertical. Mm-hmm. Uh, was something that sparked.
You know, something else and I'm like, I can now take what I've learned and I don't want to miss this opportunity to build something a lot bigger and to go back to builder mode, right? Mm-hmm. Element is in a really good spot where the growth trajectory [00:29:00] is there, the market opportunities there. We're a leader in our space and, and just not now it needs the scaling part.
Uh, but I really miss like the early days of like getting into and, and building more. So that's. That's the reason why I'm like, Hey, I need to, I need to get back to that.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. Well, I mean, it sounds like an exciting opportunity, but imagine it's gotta be hard to kind of hand your baby over to somebody else.
Ardis Kadiu: It is. Yeah. I'm, um, it is because I had my hands in everything and now we're going through the process. I'm like, oh man, remember that account that I had about this and that? Now I need to hand that over. I don't even know how to do that. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, it's, it's pretty, um, I think I'm gonna still be on the board.
Okay. So that's one of the things that, um, worked with. With PHG on. So I'm gonna be on the board and I'm gonna drive a lot of the, um, a lot of the innovation, or at least I'll be, I'll be there to, to kind of be a, a year for sure. Okay. Well I was handing off the baby, but still in the room to see what's going on.
Yeah, exactly. I'll be like the grandfather who's like, you know, gets to play with the baby a little. That's right. And hand it off. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: That's [00:30:00] great. Uh, so we are the Founder Shares podcast, and so I like to ask all of our guests, you know, if there's one piece of advice that you could give to somebody who's thinking about starting a company, you know, what would that advice be?
Ardis Kadiu: Um, I think, I think there's a lot of grind and. People from the outside don't really see that longevity on that grind. There's a lot of hard work. Uh, they only see the successes. Hmm. So the so, so sometimes, um, every founder or every success story that you see out there, it's really just a sliver of the work that those people have done before.
And you're just seeing that end result. You're just seeing that finishing line. Mm-hmm. So. Everybody's going through the same exact, uh, pain and the same exact process. So, uh, just, just go, just, you know, just go with it and, and, you know, deal with that because the, the winds are, are very, you know, they last very, very little.
And then you, you're back in the
Trevor Schmidt: back to the grind. Back
Ardis Kadiu: to the grind. Yeah. That's
Trevor Schmidt: worth it though.
Ardis Kadiu: [00:31:00] Absolutely. 100%.
Trevor Schmidt: That's, that's amazing. Artis, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for coming on and participating in, in the founder shares in the Walk West, uh, podcast marathon.
Ardis Kadiu: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. That was Ardis Kadiu. If you want to learn more about Element 4 51, be sure to check out their website at element four 50 one.com. That's E-L-E-M-E-N-T four five one.com. You can also connect with Ardis and follow what comes next for him by reaching out to him on LinkedIn. You can find a link to his profile in the show description.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Founder Shares podcast. If you are a founder or business owner and need legal advice, be sure to check out our team@hutchlaw.com. That's hutch law.com. We have the capacity to help you out with just about any legal need your company may be facing. We're passionate about the innovation economy, ready to help you on your entrepreneurial journey.
The show was edited and produced by Earfluence. I'm Trevor Schmidt and thanks for listening to the Founder Shares [00:32:00] podcast.