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AI SDRs, pipeline starvation, and overhyped tools dominate today’s revenue conversations. But how much of it actually works in practice?
Toni sits down with Todd Busler, CEO of Champify, to cut through the noise. They dig into the reality of AI in sales, the pressure to chase shiny tools, and why short-term thinking is breaking go-to-market strategy. Todd also shares the underestimated challenges of founding a company and where he sees real opportunities for growth.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:11) - Todd's Journey to Founding Champify
- (06:48) - Challenges in Go-to-Market Strategies
- (10:44) - The Reality of AI SDRs
- (13:42) - Cost-Cutting with AI
- (18:11) - Jason Lemkin's AI Insights
- (21:14) - Overhyped Tools?
- (26:45) - The Short-Term Pressure in Go-to-Market
- (30:27) - Zombie Unicorns and Market Realities
- (32:05) - Trends in Cold Calling and Power Dialers
- (34:42) - The Rise of In-Person Events
- (36:50) - Navigating the Confusing Tooling Landscape
- (42:02) - The Challenges of Starting a Company
- (47:18) - The Pressure of Venture Capital
- (54:42) - Closing Thoughts
- (56:00) - Next Week: Antoine Fort, CEO of Qobra
Creators and Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
Conversation: What’s Overhyped and Underrated in Revenue today (w/ Todd Busler, CEO of Champify)
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[00:00:00]
Introduction
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Toni: Today I'm talking with Todd, CEO of Champify, and it turns out that we have quite a few things in common. We both were previously revenue leaders that turned into founders in this very busy rev tech space, and today we're having a conversation about what we believe is overhyped and underrated in this very busy rev tech industry.
Enjoy.
Todd Busler: And I think what I'm seeing is a lot of pressure from boards and CEOs to inject AI into every part of their business. Most people probably feeling pretty inadequate in terms of their knowledge to how to do that. You read on LinkedIn and everyone's an expert building some crazy workflow, that probably doesn't work, right?
Yeah. But it's impossible for these leaders, in my opinion, not to feel like. Shit. Does everyone else have this figured out? And I don't. And I think these A-I-S-D-R, like the promise is incredible, right? Like you don't have to coach 24 year olds and do tons of skill development and role play and babysitting, which is the [00:01:00] reality to get that function to work really well.
The premise sounds amazing in practice. I have not talked to one company that says, an A-I-S-D-R is making up a sizable chunk of my pipeline.
Todd's Journey to Founding Champify
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Toni: So Todd, the reason. What we are jumping on here today is really that when we connected, we found out very quickly that we have a similar silly profile. Uh, both of us had previously go-to market leaders, uh, making good money, having good lives, and then we both decided to stop that good life.
Become founders. Um, so before we do anything else, Todd, why, why, why did you do that? Why, why are you doing this to yourself?
Todd Busler: I'm really interested in your answer on this too. So here, here's mine. Couple things. Tony. I, um. I was at a pretty hot, you know, B2B SaaS venture backed company grew [00:02:00] really nicely.
Like I saw a good run from almost zero mil, $0, like I started at around 300 K or something. It went to like 40 million. That company ended up getting close to about 80 and selling, and I think. During that run, I learned a lot. I made all of the mistakes and I felt it was an awesome training round, but when it sold, I also felt like, I don't think I got enough of that for how valuable I was.
Now, I'm sure everyone says that, but like I was first 10 employees. Hired a huge chunk of the most productive team, enabled a big chunk of that team, opened up new verticals, opened up international. So like all the value I provided at the end of the day, I don't feel like I was compensated for that. And this wasn't like a knock on the founders or anything, it was just, I joined that company at 24, 25 years old.
I wasn't that experienced when I started and while they kept taking care of me along the way. I still feel like they were getting a discount for the talent as if they were to hire someone [00:03:00] outside. Right. So I think that was 0.1. I'll tell you 0.2, that I, I think a lot of people don't think about, I had this interesting opportunity to work at a venture firm after he booked, before starting Shopify, and the logic Tony was.
Um, okay. I can learn venture from the other side. Like how do they think about it? How does deal mechanics work? How to fund mechanics work, what are they looking for in founders? Um, and what I started to see is I was like, okay. I think the early stage sales leader, which I like early stage, like I'm way better at the zero to 20 million than like once you're just like in eight forecast meetings a week.
Like I, I didn't like that thing. And I think the early stage equity bet is a bad bet for most, uh, head of sales for sales leader. Like, cool, you go get 1% equity. But like when you start to look at the probability of that working, how much dilution is gonna happen, how much you're working relative to the founder, I just don't think it's a good trade.
Right? So I started saying, okay, [00:04:00] unless there's some company that I'm like, I cannot pass on. I'm better off trying to start something on my own, and it may be a smaller outcome, but I own a much bigger chunk of it. So that was my logic. Now there was a lot of stuff I underestimated in that, but that was my logic.
Toni: So, so let me, let me, let me jump on that train. A lot of stuff that I've underestimated. I think a big reason for me was, um, you know, I was, I was part of two really successful journeys. Both of them ended in an exit. I was working extremely close, uh, with the founders and CEOs, basically of the business.
And, and this is, this is the silly thing, right? I've really only had those two main journeys. I had, I had some work before I studied, or between my bachelor and my master, but really those were my journeys. So while I consciously knew, Hey, this isn't normal, like in my belly, I was like, dude, I, I can do this myself.
How difficult can this be? Come on, these guys are smart and good and driven, but. [00:05:00] Seriously. I mean, come on, I, I can do this myself. Right? So this was one part of the tangent, basically. Sometimes I call it, um, you know, arrogance and ignorance. Basically both things combined drove me in this direction. I'm hearing a little bit of that also from you definitely, you know, maybe coupled with a bit of, with a dash of greed in there as well, right?
So same, same for me too. Um, and I think then the other thing actually was, um. This was pre COVID, this was before everyone was doing remote work. Uh, I was looking around and there was just, you know, I really like Ian Copenhagen. Uh, so I didn't wanna move away and I didn't even know remote work actually existed.
Um, so I was looking at the teams here in Copenhagen, and there was this one bracket that I basically came out of that were all in the, you know, post exit 30 40 million range. Um, that, that area. And then there were the, the teams, there were like 15 people. Uh, there was, there was just nothing in between.
And then I was like, you know what, actually, if my real only option is to join those 15 [00:06:00] people, folks, um, how difficult would it be to just start from zero instead of from 15, right? Um, and then basically jumped into this with both feet. Um, you know, two friends of mine built the business, um. Raised venture capital made all kind, you know, all the mistakes you can, you can make, we totally made them.
Um, and yeah, that resulted into the first adventure that didn't really go, uh, as, as hope. But, you know, I think that was my, that was, that's, that's how I stumbled into this. I, I, I wanna say. Um, but, but enough, enough of our backgrounds here and, and I think now it's pretty clear for people that. We do actually have pretty similar backgrounds.
Um, should we jump into the first couple of, um, I wanna say topics we want to knock on? Right.
Challenges in Go-to-Market Strategies
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Toni: Um, so let's, let's really kind of go into this, you know, you and I, um, you know, founders, AKA, we are doing most of the selling and, you know, [00:07:00] you guys have a, you know, a bunch of people on the team. I'm sure you have a couple of more sellers than just yourself, but I'm sure you're still very much involved in all that stuff.
So what is it that you're seeing across all of those conversations that are, let's just say, not necessarily the ified problems that you're running into, but what are, what are the things you're seeing that go to market leaders struggle with? Like, what are the real problems people run into? Um, you know, that, that, that is you again and again.
Uh, and you see that currently?
Todd Busler: A couple things. I think the first thing is there's like this bifurcation of companies right now, like you're this hot, well-funded. You know, very AI, first AI native company that's going really crazy. I think they have their own challenges. They're different, right? But the reality is 95 or more percent of the companies are not that, right?
So like most of the conversations are with these SaaS companies that may be growing nicely or growth is a little slower than they want, but they're good businesses. They have scale. Most of the conversations is, are, are with that camp. And I think what [00:08:00] I'm seeing is. A lot of pressure from boards and CEOs to inject AI into every part of their business.
Um, most people probably feeling pretty inadequate in terms of their knowledge to how to do that. You read on LinkedIn and everyone's an expert building some crazy workflow, that probably doesn't work right? But it's impossible for these leaders, in my opinion, not to feel like shit, does everyone else have this figured out?
And I don't, how do I make this thing work? So I think a lot of people are feeling some of that uneasiness or tension. I would say almost universally across the board, people are struggling to get into enough deals, right? Mm-hmm. And, um, I think what. Sometimes the unsaid truth is that people that have had good runs like me or you, or even more experienced people, a lot of the mechanisms that they've used in the past just are not working at the same level.
And some people are figuring out creatively how to adjust that and a lot are not and [00:09:00] struggling, right? So I think like that's kind of the undertone of a lot of what I'm seeing and feeling.
Toni: Wouldn't you think that, you know, those two things are a little bit connected, right? I mean, it's. I call it mass pipeline starvation that's going on right now.
And at the same time, people are pressured to use AI for all kinds of tricks. And, and it's kind of, it's not working. And I would even say in some cases, AI is almost to blame for the starvation that's happening because it basically has been killing some of those really dependable, reliable plays that you and I build our careers on, by the way, um, that are just not.
I don't wanna say they're not working. I think Outpost still, uh, works fine by the way, but they're just not working like they used to. Um, that's it. And, you know, and, and that's kind of, that, that kills it basically. Right? And then, then I feel AI is sometimes floated as this magic solution to solve it, the savior and.
And, and I, I call it the Messiah actually. Yeah. Uh, AI is the [00:10:00] Messiah, you know? Um, but the, but, but it's, it's, it's just not happening. The deriving questions from that is actually, um, does AI actually work to grow pipeline? You know, does that actually work? Uh, you know, this whole 11 x and what is it Artisan?
And, and that whole story. Do you believe that works? Or is it, does it work through, like indirectly through different means or kind of what's your thinking? This whole story that has been sold, and it's on LinkedIn, is, oh, AI will grow your pipeline. I just don't see this happening. I've, I've only seen AI diminishing my pipeline.
That's what I've seen so far.
Todd Busler: I'm in the same camp as you, so here, here's my take on it.
The Reality of AI SDRs
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Todd Busler: I think these AI SDRs, like the promise is incredible. Like you don't have to coach 24 year olds and do tons of skill development and role play and babysitting, which is the reality to get that function to work really well.
Um, the premise sounds amazing in [00:11:00] practice. I have not talked to one company that says, an AI SDR is making up a sizable chunk of my pipeline. I think there's two versions where it can be a nice. Additive bump, right? And I think that's in super s and b, huge TAM markets for more commodity oriented products, right?
You're selling something in expense management or a loan product or some HR thing where your TAM is literally hundreds of thousands of companies and you really just have to be touching enough of them and be on the radar, and you will get some from them. Again, most of the companies I talk to are not that.
I think there's another camp where you have a massive PLG motion or you have a huge inbound flywheel and putting some AI SDR on this like constant nurture thing can, can lead to results. The thing is, it's not like it's making up 20% of a company's pipeline. So it's like it's overpromised on what it can do and under deliver.
Toni: I used to be in this like, oh no, human [00:12:00] sts. Like, you know, there's just a difference between those two and that's why human SDRs work. And I actually, I'm not in the camp anymore. I, you know, and it's not necessarily because AI got so much better. I'm, I'm not sure if it did meaningfully in that part. Right.
I think AI is way overpowered for. Basically every business right now, right? Kind of No one is really using this in the, in, in the fully extent. Um, but I think, you know, I, I was trying to kind of figure this out for myself, right? Sure. Human, SES, they can still cold call, uh, ai sess can't. But then again, human SES don't want to cold call, right?
Kind of, that's, that's, that's the other part of the reality. And I think what I'm kind of getting to is where hiring an additional SDR was basically cost prohibitive previously. Actually adding the AI SDR makes sense. But let's just say you're in a, you know, you know, we are over here in Europe. Let's just say you're in a smaller market.
Let's just say you're in Germany. You already have 20 SDRs on this thing. Um, would you [00:13:00] actually wanna hire additionally 10 SDRs into this region? Like would you want to, right. If the answer used to be no, it doesn't make sense. We don't have more accounts and contacts and so forth to go for. Then adding an AI SDR that basically does that, it's not gonna help you, maybe it's gonna help you like a, a quick spike, right?
Because you basically, I don't know, the 10% accounts that you have left burn through in one day, for example. Um, but otherwise it doesn't, it doesn't work for you at all, right? It, it, it cannot drive more pipeline, what it actually can do. And I just haven't seen enough people being, I'm gonna say brave enough to execute it like this is.
Cost-Cutting with AI
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Toni: No, we actually are using the AI SDR to cut cost. Actually, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna actually replace human STS with that. Um, because then it suddenly, suddenly it makes sense, right? Instead of having 20 people calling the German market, you may be only a five and then you have one agent [00:14:00] doing the other, you know, replacing the other 15 or something like that, right?
And, and, and that I can see, but it's like. I haven't seen it.
Todd Busler: I am seeing that trend a bit though, where like, um, people starting to say that, okay, um, SDR really good SDR who's sending super personalized emails actually isn't going to get that much of a lift at all compared to some more automated, whether it's AI or one human doing this, you know, for 20 at the same time via variety of tools.
Mm-hmm. So maybe, um. Hey, we will have an A-I-S-D-R do it because they don't sleep. They work on the weekends and we can get the messaging. Almost as good, if not better. And the reality is the result's probably not gonna change. And then how do I divert this SDR attention to doing things that AI can't do?
Like getting really good on the phones. Yeah. Right. So I think what's gonna happen is you'll have more of this automated email going out by like a growth [00:15:00] marketer or someone manning in a AI SDR. And most SDR is spending almost all their time on the phones in LinkedIn dms, but like. It is gonna hit at a certain point where like, does that email really not work at all?
And someone's just gonna be like, do we actually have to keep doing this? Right? Yeah. Like we don't, we don't send much automated email. We've tried a variety of different ways. We don't use the sequence or tool anymore. And I, and my previous company built a hundred million dollars in pipeline, basically on the back of outreach.
Um, and we don't do it at all because. We had reps doing it and just the amount of meetings that we get from email is so low, it does isn't worth their time. And then we had smart growth people using all these AI native tools and still, it doesn't really work to the level that I think justifies the time.
So maybe we're bad at it. Right. But like, I think that's happening and a lot of people are afraid to say it.
Toni: And I think that's kind of the other thing that's, that's probably out there but not really [00:16:00] talked about is, um. I just, you know, just wrote a piece on the, literally the, the growth Messiah AI kind of, that may be not working out.
And I think if there is someone coming around the corner right now, it's, at first I kind of, it's the evil AI Messiah. But then I was like, ah, I can't, can't do that. That's too negative. Let's call it the. CFO Ai Messiah, that basically kind of is looking at the thing and it's going like, well, wait a minute.
Um, if AI can't help us grow because it apparently can't, very limited, not as exciting as we all thought it would be. Um, maybe it can help us cut a lot. Uh, cut costs a lot. Um. I think that's actually, um, you know, it's obviously kind of a negative story and it's always leads to this like, oh, the, you know, AI is coming from my job and blah, blah.
I think that's totally happening. And I actually think that, um, you know, while, [00:17:00] while the boards, as you mentioned are pushing like, Hey, you need to deploy ai, my friend, and then the CEO is like, okay, dear CRO, please use AI to drive me more pipeline. That same CEO has the same conversation with the CFO, but instead of pipeline, they just like, you need to drive down cost with this thing.
Right? And what's, what's the CFO going to do is like looking at the p and l, it's like, oh wow, sales and marketing, that seems like a really big, big expense here for us. Isn't there something we could be doing about this? And I think, um, I think that part is gonna, I dunno, it's gonna, it's gonna pick up more pace in the next year, I think.
Todd Busler: I agree with that. I think like, look, these things are gonna keep getting better. The tech is gonna keep getting better. We're gonna collectively get better at training and tweaking them. Like I follow Jason Lemkin talking a lot about how yes, much time he's spending on his ai, we're not doing that yet.
Maybe we should be right. Like I'm really eager to see that. And you can make arguments faster is an easier sell. It's kind of a one, [00:18:00] you know, it's basically a sponsorship. He knows who the target is, but like. It has to get better and it's going to get cheaper. Right. So like those CFOs I think are gonna be pressured to do a lot of that.
Jason Lemkin's AI Insights
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Toni: Let's talk more about Jason, because I also, I've been, you know, following that specific thread of his like lately because it's really, really interesting, right? Kind of yet this whole thing about, uh, rapt and Tim vibe coding like crazy. I think that was interesting. Um, but then the other thing is he's now talking a lot about how.
You know how awesome, but also incredibly time consuming it is to set up those agents. Right. And he is talking about like an SDR kind of thing, content, whatever, like support. I, I don't actually know what Is it that, in your, in your opinion, um, what, what is the learning there actually, you know, what is it everyone else is getting wrong around AI and what, what, what is it that, that Jason is starting to seemingly starting to figure out here?
Todd Busler: Yeah, I think there's two parts. So on the like. Vibe coding thing. I don't [00:19:00] know about you. I've spent multiple weekends trying to build stuff, different things and like it seems fun, but like output from it. Uhuh. Right? And I'm not the most technical person, or maybe I have bad ideas, but I think I'm way more common than the one person raving about some new productivity thing they built.
Toni: Yeah.
Todd Busler: On the second front, I think as a VC you have to be kind of this futurist mindset. You wanna be the first one using different tools. And in his mind he's like. Okay. I can invest a ton of time in trying to get this thing to work. It's overall gonna get better and better. He's creating amazing content.
Me and you, without even talking about this before, both reading and following all of it. Yeah. But like, I don't know. I would love for him to be like, here's what our AI SDR did. Here's how it compared to the human right. Here's how it's changing over time. I haven't seen much of that, but. Based on the way he talks, it seems like it is starting to work.
Um, I'm not seeing that from most companies I'm talking to,
Toni: and I think that goes a little [00:20:00] bit into the, you know, he has this massive email database and I'm sure the SDI can work through this and you know, this is, I think that's an example. He's unique there. Right. I think that's really important to call out.
Exactly, but also, um, I think it was cost prohibitive for him previously to install 10 SDRs that do that stuff because he doesn't have venture capital. Right. He's a venture capitalist himself. Right. Kind of. This is a profitable business that he's running with Sasa. Yeah. It's not a SAS business either. No, exactly right. Um, so, but I think what I really think is interesting is people are totally underestimating the amount of work that they need to put in for those AI SY systems, whatever they are. To actually work. Like, I think that's, that's a major dime that's dropping when I, when I read that stuff. And I'm sure other people are kind of having the same experience.
It's like, ah, so I, I actually shouldn't be blaming the vendor and the model I actually should be blaming me instead. So I think there's, there's a little bit of that happening, I think, for people. Right. And I think that's, [00:21:00] um, I, I think, I think that's one piece. Maybe kind of that's going over into the, to almost the next, next question I had, and maybe I shut up for this, but what is it you see, you know, people are doing wrong?
Overhyped Tools?
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Toni: Kind of what are mistakes, what is, what is overhyped? Kind of what, what, what were you thinking about that in terms of problems that, that we are seeing right now in order to basically address the main problem, which is, uh, pipeline division, I feel really
Todd Busler: strongly about this question because again, if you talk to people and that like.
For example, clay, right? Like super powerful tool. There's this blank canvas of all stuff you can do. But the, a conversation I seem to be having a lot is you don't get points for like building complex campaigns, right? You don't get points for stitching together a bunch of Yeah. Previously impossible to stitch together data sets.
You get points for meetings that convert in a pipeline and revenue. [00:22:00] Right. And I think there's been a little bit of this obsession on look at what I can do and a lot less on here's what it's driving. Right. And you know, I think, uh, it's all kind of predicated on a bet that it's gonna keep getting better and the results will come.
I think if you pulled a hundred people, 99% would say the results haven't really come yet.
Toni: I also would say, and this is, this is, you know, kudos to clay, which are basically able to cut through the attention. Like I think that's the biggie that, you know, everyone is basically failing at and just a few are able to do it.
Um, but if you talk to any random CRO right now, um, and you, you bring up clay. They either say, no, we have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or no, or we totally need clay. And then you say, what does Clay do? And they just don't actually have a clue. It's like, well, it's something with like data and enrichment. Um, but that's it.
Right? And I think that's, um, that's a lot of the drive that they're getting. And then I think you put it best like the other day [00:23:00] when we talked about this, it's like, um, a lot of people that just love solving puzzles. Fall in love with this tool, right? Because it basically kind of does that for them. And, and, and the question is like, yes, you know, the guy that loves to solve puzzles in, you know.
Random Joe, medium sized business in the us That's cool. But what about the enterprise businesses that, you know, don't have these people or don't want to have these people or kind of have different measurements of what success looks like. Is that also gonna work there? Right. And and to a degree, I think the whole clay thing, uh, albeit lots of people are super fans on this show, I'm sure about that.
But, you know, it's, it's starting to drift a little bit into the over hype bucket for me actually. Uh, but, um. I dunno, I don't wanna, I don't wanna speak poorly about those folks.
Todd Busler: I mean, look, I think they're gonna be a case study in absolute best marketing and positioning. Like it's unbelievable how they've gone about it.
I also know Kareem and [00:24:00] Varun, they're very, very smart. So like to get a lot of this buzz and early adoption and then a really, really good ENG team, like, I think they have a huge opportunity to do a lot of interesting things. But I do think to date, it's a lot of like. They've created this kind of enigma of, like, someone described it best to me the other day.
If Tony, if, if someone's using your company or Shopify or insert 10 other, not really you, but ours world of you pay FY to get pipeline. Right. At the end of the day, that's what it is. And if we don't deliver pipeline, we get fired at the end of the year. Mm-hmm. If Clay doesn't deliver pipeline, someone says, ah, the person operating clay isn't smart enough.
We didn't quite figure that out, and they've created that and it's unbelievable right now. Again, I, I think like, uh. They have a really smart team and they're going to capitalize on, I don't know, their internal stuff. So maybe like, I'm just hearing from people that can't quite figure it out, but like that positioning, however [00:25:00] that happened is incredible.
Toni: So I mean, at the end of the day, um, Clay's, I think Clay is solving one of the biggest issues that's holding back, um, this whole AI. Boom, uh, that maybe, you know, it hopefully soon will reach, uh, the p and l. But it's really the, you know, it's really your, your messy data. It's like all of this data stuff, like the, the boring things.
At least that's my perception. And when I, when I, when I talk to folks, I get this, I hear this all the time. Uh, the boring things are what, what's holding people back. It's like, oh, my data is messy. Um, we don't have a clean process for the AI to follow or to learn from, or, and we actually didn't document much of, you know, how we pitch whom, and you know, why.
And, and, and it's really, um, all of these old ways of onboarding a human, um, they, they [00:26:00] just don't work the same way with onboarding and ai, for example. Right. And it's kind of. I, I, I think those are like the, these, these boring things, uh, are the, are the main pieces holding people back from, from trying to jump on this automation train.
At least that's kind of my perception actually.
Todd Busler: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, like, you know, whether it's Claire insert other players, like when you were coming up as the CRO or me as well, like finding a good list of people, getting data together, getting contact information, be able to execute. It was really hard.
And like making that thing easy is a huge value prop and every company. Needs it. Even if you're not doing any outbound, you're doing some marketing stuff, you're doing some targeting stuff, right? So it's like, it's a massive problem,
Toni: you know?
The Short-Term Pressure in Go-to-Market
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Toni: So sometimes I think about what we are trying to achieve in the go-to market.
It's really suffers under this extreme pressure for the short term, right? Kind of let's, let's say kind of the other way around, uh, and politics, right? To give those folks what, four [00:27:00] years, five years, uh, depending on, you know, which role in which country. To turn things around and do the right thing. Um, and even they're saying like, Hey guys, FOYA is pretty short.
Like for a country, foer is not much, you know? Um, I feel, I feel it go to market. It's three month, like you have, you have three months. If some, if, if a bet doesn't work, uh, out in three months, um, there's gonna be election. And, and, and you might not, you might not get reelected, my friend. You know, it's like, isn't isn't this like one of those things that just.
You know, that's perpetuating this messy state of things where everyone is just looking for new, shiny things, throwing them at the problem, oops, didn't work. Um, but everyone is trying to just, you know, get something done within like a super short amount of time. I mean, isn't isn't some of that short-termism, uh, so to speak, at the, at the heart of it?
I think
Todd Busler: definitely. I think there's even something deeper there, which is like, we're in a real, real, I've been doing this tech stuff for like. [00:28:00] 14 years, right? Like I feel like, and I heard Jason Lemkin not to keep talking about him, say this on a podcast. He was like, look, it used to be a get to 10 million in a, in a RR.
If you had strong net retention, a hundred was very possible, right? Mm-hmm. You had to do the right things, but it was kind of inevitable almost. Right now I see a lot of companies between 30, 50, 70, a hundred that like. That growth is not guaranteed anymore, right? You, you're getting flanked on all ends by some YCA AI first startup that's cracked out and doing insanely fast on the product side.
Um, and you can fall out of product market fit. Way quicker than it ever felt like in my career doing this. And then who gets blamed is the CRO, because short term, the pipeline machine isn't working. And I think there's a lot of CEOs that, and founders that don't wanna accept. It's a much bigger problem, but it's very easy to point to the sales leader or they're gonna market leader and say, Hey, this on you.
Toni: I mean, I think there's some, some deeper truth actually in the whole, [00:29:00] um. Well, you reached 10 million, you still haven't gotten anywhere. Right? Kind of. There's this whole thing now about like, no, no, no, no. Remember this? Triple, triple, triple, double, double. That's not quadruple, quadruple, triple, triple, you know?
It's like, okay, great. Thank you. I'll put this into anxiety box. Uh, but then the other thing is right, you have, um, this clari SalesLoft thing basically Clary SalesLoft drift thing. You know that that Franken suite that emerged there, that. I'm not sure who, who it was, but basically people are calling it out.
It's, it's a defeat. It's basically they, them saying, you know what doesn't work out, you know, we, we spent what, a billion dollars in venture capital in order to get to wherever we are. And I'm not even sure if they're like a six, you know, they're probably like two, 300 million, the combined entity. But they have like terrible growth numbers.
They have terrible net retention numbers. They have terrible everything numbers. Right. And, and just. Throwing all of these things together is probably not gonna result in a better product. [00:30:00] Like I think that's gonna be difficult. Um. It's probably not gonna result in a healthier company. Um, the only thing it results in is nicer looking spreadsheets with maybe a zero more here and there, and maybe some, you know, synergies, cost synergies.
Again, we're back to cost, I guess. But, uh, that, you know, it seems very much like a financially engineered thing rather than a. Uh, Ooh. This, this makes total sense for our customers and, and prospects.
Todd Busler: I've been thinking a lot about this.
Zombie Unicorns and Market Realities
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Todd Busler: So I listened to the, if you ever listen to Bill Gurley has a podcast called BG two.
No. And these like really finance brains that are way smarter than me and way more experienced. But you know, he was talking about what happens to a lot of these zombie unicorns,
Toni: right?
Todd Busler: Which are like, you've raised way too much money. It's not a bad company. You're either profitable or very close to it, but the growth is nowhere near the bar for what it is to be an IPO business.
So I don't think it's really a defeat. I think it's just accepting the reality. And if you're one of those [00:31:00] companies, you either need to say, okay, I can keep trying to chug along. Make a bunch of different AI bets, hopefully we can speed up all of this growth. Or you need to say, what's the alternative, which is probably some merger m and a combining, accepting way, shittier liquidation preferences.
You're not gonna make the money that you thought, but I think it's a lot better than the alternative. And if you look at, you know, the CEO Clarity's been at it for a long time, right? So like if you don't believe that some new m and a you can do of taking a smaller company, which they've tried. Or a big bet on some new product area is gonna really accelerate.
I think you're gonna have to do this right? There's already been a ton of m and a in our space, even at the smaller scale. Because you will, I, I have to believe that you're gonna get more efficiency gains of not only like, hey, you combine two companies. You have less g and a and head, you know, duplicative headcount, but also you're fighting one less competitor in every deal cycle, which should help velocity, should help the pricing pressure you were seeing, right?
[00:32:00] Because. It's just a lot of categories where people have been duking it out for years. So I think this has to happen.
Trends in Cold Calling and Power Dialers
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Toni: What are trends that, that you think are accelerating, uh, currently in this space, right? And this might both be problems that are worsening or solutions that are getting traction or, you know, whatever it might be.
But what do you think is picking up pace, uh, and is landing in more and more, uh, people's heads and, and then feel like, you know, either they need to act on it or, or they're behind?
Todd Busler: I think the trend that's like most. Obvious that I'm saying is like. I think some of these cold call power dialer solutions are really having a moment where it used to be kind of like, yeah, we maybe do that.
Or we talk about taking, dialing and a cold call culture serious, and now people are really leaning into that thing with, you know, folks like Orum and some of the competitors there. Mm-hmm. And it's just like, again, you have a sales team, you're the CRO, you're looking across your team and saying, what's the best expected value I can get for a dollar, you know, an [00:33:00] hour of work of someone on my team.
While connect rates may be going down, it's probably better than the alternatives. That's how we see it internally. Right. Um, so I think they're having a moment. Um, I'd say that's the one trend or thing that I'm seeing that most people are like really talking about across the board.
Toni: I think it's an interesting one.
So the, the European perspective on this, like, ah, it's not allowed, it's fabo here. Um, but uh, basically power dial for everyone who doesn't know this. Uh, you, but calling 10, 10 people at the same time, and then the first one that picks up, that's, that's the person that then connects to the rep, right?
Basically what used to be 10 dials in a sequence is now 10 dials in parallel. And obviously you're gonna have, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna have more conversations, basically kind of doing this stuff, right? And, and I think the, the whole idea about it. Is really okay. Um, you know, emails and, and LinkedIn and all of that stuff [00:34:00] can now be sent automatically by those s AI SDRs.
So what's left to do for humans? And it's, and it's calling, uh, right. I mean, so I, I, I chatted with someone about this. I'm not a thousand percent sure actually, but robo calling in the US that is still also not allowed, right. Kind of Correct. You're not allowed to out outbound poly. Correct. And this is not just a, oh, this is not allowed in state of New York or state of California.
This is, this is broadly speaking, not allowed anywhere, right?
Todd Busler: That's right. Yeah.
Toni: So, and, and then basically kind of those power dials, that's, that's the way to do it, right? That you have a human being, but you reach a bunch of more people at the same time. Right?
Todd Busler: Yeah.
The Rise of In-Person Events
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Todd Busler: I would say the other thing that I'm seeing is also people really leaning into events and saying, how can I get really good at this thing?
And when I say events, I think that also means trade shows and big sponsors, but also getting really good at kind of owned regional events, right? So like. [00:35:00] Hey, yeah, maybe we're only gonna get 12, 15, 20 people there, but again, it's better than the alternative. So let's get really good at that thing. I think people wanna get in person, they want to have some human connection.
People are a little bit, um, fatigued with all of the digital nature of communication. So I, that's a common trend I'm hearing is like, hey, we're, I talked to a big company yesterday. They're like, we're doing 500 events this year. Like 500 events right now. That's a big team and a big investment. But again, I think it's probably better than the alternatives.
Toni: So I was just about to ask, like everyone is talking about in person because Yeah, that makes sense now. Um, but are people really doing, is this really actually happening and now when you say this company does 500 events? You know, I always kind of retracted my question, but I, so far I've been hearing a lot of people talking about it.
I haven't seen anyone like, uh, you know, outside of. I dunno, pavilion or, you know, communities like that that you can, you know, jump on. Um. I see these people also, you know, struggle really committing to [00:36:00] this events thing, right? Because it doesn't, it doesn't bring the immediate, okay, I, I closed this last call and here's an opportunity now, and, and now, now we're closing a deal.
It doesn't have that, right? So it always feels like a risky bat. Um, so that's what I see where people then suddenly hesitate, right? And I, I'm, I'm not sure if people are really fully jumping on this or if this is more like, um, oh, you know, because of this AI thing, this probably should make sense now.
Todd Busler: I'm seeing companies take it really seriously and they're partnering field marketers with specific regions for reps, and they're saying, all right, we're gonna go do this once a month, throw an event, get 20 people there.
And you have to be really creative to say, how do I get someone to show up? Or hopefully your deal size justifies enough to kind of pay for something interesting to get people to come, but there's companies taking it really seriously, and I think it's smart. Tony, there's one other trend I'm seeing.
Navigating the Confusing Tooling Landscape
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Todd Busler: I'm curious that you have either, both at the time at Growblocks and now at Attive is.
Um, people have a problem [00:37:00] for us. It's like, Hey, I'm trying to fix pipeline. I'm trying to get more output per wrap. And in my career selling beforehand it was like, okay, I wanna fix this problem. I'm looking at this category of vendors. I'm gonna pick one based on required capabilities and sales cycle and demos or trials, or whatever that is.
Whereas now I feel like people. Are starting to look at variety of different categories and flavors of tooling to fix a problem. And I think it's, it's a challenge for reps and deal cycles because basically what I'm saying is I think the required capabilities, so a lot of these buyers are a lot more amorphous, right?
And it's like, I have a problem I wanna fix. I didn't even know how I'm gonna tackle that. I'm wondering if you felt that or were seeing that or how you think about it. 'cause I don't think we're alone.
Toni: I think the problem actually stems from. And I'm seeing this in active two to a degree, right? Because we are like, we are like this AI native company.
Um, AI enables you to solve a bunch of [00:38:00] problems. Uh, and suddenly, uh, you can claim you play on all of those different categories, um, that. That were previously extremely separate and, and you, you couldn't possibly solve all of these things. But I think with AI suddenly, yeah, sure. I mean, I can, I can run a forecast for you.
You can also clean your data and because, you know, if, you know, listen to a transcript for you right there, there's so many things suddenly that, that feel like they're collapsing a little bit. And I think what's happening is, um, buyers are getting increasingly so confused. Previously you had this wonderful, oh, um, you know, there's a market map and then there's a category, and then I go into the category and who's winning the category Now more and more smelling like, oh, wait a minute.
I don't think you can trust that chess board approach anymore. Uh, suddenly, suddenly you need to look at, you know, the, what's the meta play on top, right? And, and then I think even more so [00:39:00] confusing is. Sam Altman goes on stage, announces something new. Uh, and then not, not only every founder, but also every buyer is like, oh, geez, is, is that maybe gonna be included in my OpenAI subscription in six months?
Do I, do I need a tool for this, a lock in for 12, 12 month, or is that gonna be just an add-on like with Anthropic tomorrow? And I think that's. That's what is scaring, uh, you know, buyers to, to a degree, I think. Right? And, uh, I think those two things together don't only make it harder for buyer, uh, for sellers.
I think they also make it harder for buyers.
Todd Busler: I think so too. I think so too, but I just don't see how that's gonna get materially easier or better anytime soon.
Toni: No, me neither, right? Like, no, no, I don't, I don't think so. And, and then there's always like this, oh, I don't know how that's gonna get solved. And then someone just yells [00:40:00] AI and it's like, I, I'm not sure if that's actually gonna be the solution to that either, you know?
Um, I think at the end of the day, there, there, there will be a surge of. New tools now, they just will be. Right. And I think the, um, the barrier to entry is lowered. Um, even I'm using cursor for the website, not for anything else, just for the website. Um, and I can just see how. How much easier it, it is for people.
You know, you don't, you don't need to raise 5 million. You don't even need to raise a mil, raise a million. Actually, you can, you can just get going from, from zero basically. Um, so what's gonna happen is you have a lot more entrance, a lot, you know, the market map is gonna look even more confusing. Um, and then trying to navigate that as a buyer is just gonna be incredibly difficult, right?
And, and I think what, you know, either what's gonna happen is you have like really smart AI that just scrolls through everything and kind of figures this out for you. I don't know. Um, or you're gonna buy the [00:41:00] folks, you know, meaning someone broke through the noise, we're able to sell you a story of, hey, like, that's really powerful for you.
Um, and then just gonna go with it, right? I, I think the. I think some of the, um, laziness and trust and, and default to the safe option, I think it's gonna, uh, red its head again. But also at the same time, I think this whole consolidation play that we were like sold with like Gong and Clary and sales software outreach.
Um. I don't think that's so pronounced anymore. I, I don't, I don't, you know, I feel there's a little bit of a waning of gong. Like, people say like, ah, you know, it's pretty expensive actually, and I, I use it for call recording. I don't need to hold the forecasting thing. I don't need that stuff. Um, and there's a little bit of a fracturing that's happening again of people like, you know what, let's go best, best of breed.
Let's do that again. Um, and, um, you know, all of these, I'm not sure what the net factors of this, but, but I'm, [00:42:00] I'm seeing all of these things happening.
The Challenges of Starting a Company
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Todd Busler: Tony, I wanted to ask you something, 'cause I get a lot of dms or people in my network saying, you know, I've done the go to market leader thing, maybe have a background like you or I did, and they're saying, I've always flirted with wanting to start this company.
What advice do you have for those people? Or how do you answer that question when people are like, Hey, I, should I do what you did? Should I take a crack at this thing? What? What advice do you have? Or like some maybe learnings that are valuable for that flavor of person.
Toni: I think if you sit down and try and do like a, um, should I do it?
Should I not? Kind of tally? Um, you should not do it. And it's a little bit, and this is, you know, you know, let, let's see what people think about this. By the way, if you sit down and do a tally on should I get kids or. You will land it, you shouldn't do it. Like, you know, if, if you go all the way to the end, it's like, you know what, it's actually a terrible idea.
But the thing is, um, a lot of people have kids, you know, by choice and, [00:43:00] and a lot of people go out and, and, and build a company. And I think the reason for that is not that, um, you're super convinced you're gonna make any more cash. I think what I'm seeing more and more is people, um, enjoy building, like building stuff.
You know, building a company is just like building a a table or being a carpenter or something. Like you, you are building something. I think that gives you a different level of joy. Um, I think the, uh, the freedom and the, and the lottery ticket, uh, it's super alluring. Um, I think what, you know, once people start on the track, what they will see is.
Um, how extremely difficult this is, how extremely joyless this is. How, um, how, how, how, how really good. This, you know, monthly 10 20 K dollars salary looks like from that vantage point suddenly. Um, so really at the end of the day, [00:44:00] you just need to choose what you want to miss. Do you want to miss freedom?
Uh, like in, I can do what I want, kind of sense? Or do you want to miss freedom in, I can buy whatever I want, kind of cents. You know, you, you just need to, you just need to decide. Um, and um, um, and, and the last thing I will say on this topic is. Go do it. Like this was a big thing for me. Um, I was a go-to market leader.
I did some, you know, finance work before, uh, I, I was kind of an, a venture capital fund before I did some of the, you know, financing for, you know, at least two of those companies. As, I mean together with the CEO, right? I didn't do that, but uh, it kind of saw it up close. Um, I felt I had all the skills and the network available to do it, so I would've felt shitty not to try.
Right. Kind of, it was almost like a FOMO situation basically. And if you have that, you should totally do it and do it as early as you can. Don't do it [00:45:00] when you have kids. Like the, the risk just goes up so much because you have to. You have to bring home cash. Um, and, and it's much easier to live on what I sometimes call ramen profitability, um, when you're by yourself or with a spouse than when you have family, right?
Kind of your fixed expense with a family, just five access, like from one day to the next. Um, so do it as, as soon as you can rather than wait. You know? I mean, we talked about this a little bit earlier, right? But, uh, I mean. What's, what's your thinking on that question?
Todd Busler: I think there's a couple things I underestimated, like I, and I'll tell you a story, Tony, like, um, my co-founder and I, we were talking about Champ five for a while.
He was eventually like, Hey, I'm gonna go do this. And I was like, Hey, I'm gonna invest and I'm gonna help you out a little bit. And he was trying to say, no, we should be doing this together. And, uh, I first said no. And then like a couple months later I was eating at me and I was like, ah, I really think that's the thing I [00:46:00] should be doing.
Um, I think there's two things I underestimated. One, just how all encompassing and consuming it is. Like there's so many times I'm eating dinner with my wife and she's talking. I'm like, I'm not listening to one word you're saying. Like, it's so always on. I think the other thing is just like if you're in a company, you're leading the sales org, like.
You have a bad day or a low productive week like your reps are selling, marketing people are doing something. So like stuff is happening at the early stage. If you don't do anything, literally nothing happens. Right? Like the, just every single day you have to be creating and pushing something forward. I think I underestimated that and then, but I think I thought about it ultimately the same way you did, which is like.
It's all hard. What is the hard you want to pick? And then what are you going to feel better about missing or not doing? Right? Like I spent this year in the venture thing and it was a [00:47:00] well-paid job. It was interesting, the work I was doing, but part of me felt like, ah, I'm on the sideline, right? Like, I'm not really really in the game.
And to me. That felt worth the trade offs of making a lot less money, uh, you know, more of a lottery ticket that my wife hating me sometimes. Right? Like,
The Pressure of Venture Capital
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Toni: one advice I can give and I think it's more pertinent now than it, than it used to be like five years ago. Um, try not raise venture capital. I think that, you know, it's, it's been written into our brains that the way you build a business is you get a pre-seed round and then you hire some people and then you build a business.
Um. You don't have to do it like this. Actually. In fact, for most of human life, that's not how you did it. You just build an actual, you know what we now in this regard call a lifestyle business or profitable business. That's how businesses used to get built. You know, you, you started working and you, you know, had some customers that are worked out.
Um, and I [00:48:00] think with the extremely low financial footprint right now to get a product out. There are other paths to this. Right? And you know, I'm, I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's a luxurious role. I think it's also not super luxurious, even, even when you raise capital. But I gotta say I do sleep a lot better.
I sleep a lot better now than, than working, uh, you know, with a lot of money, uh, on the bank account. Um, and. You know, that in itself also gives you some joy and energy to keep building and pursuing this and not questioning yourself all the time. And, um, so I think that's, that's worthwhile to consider for folks.
Todd Busler: Why do you think that is?
Toni: The, the, the expectation, the pressure is just insane. Right? So, but is that even
Todd Busler: your board and investors, or is that just self No,
Toni: it's, I mean, sure. It's also there, right? You know, it's not, you know, I'm terribly sorry for my investors having lost their money, and in some of them I knew personally [00:49:00] before, and I'm really sorry that they did lose their money.
Um, but really my motivation was for myself to achieve that, right? Kind of the, the, the other folks, which is with me for the right, so to speak. Um, and the thing is right, you go out on fundraise and you tell a story and you believe that story even, you know, it's like, oh, well this is gonna be difficult, but you obviously do believe this story, right?
I. I think doing anything else that's, that's shitty, that's shit, you know, that, you know, taking money from someone and actually not believing what you're saying, that's kind of a shitty thing. Um, but then you get caught up in, in obviously your own belief and, and how difficult it's to achieve that. Right? Kind of, if you raised, you know, we raised 8 million euros, um, uh, you know, and I think in the end with like 30 million posts or something like this, um, you need to. You need to have an actual business that grows into those shoes and, and not only grows into 30 million, really the way the math works is you need to grow at least into 90 million.
Like, that's, that's how it is my friend. Right. [00:50:00] And, and it's like in order to get to 90 million, um, and, and you know, especially when you then do a series A, series B, the the, the math starts to be less magical, right? When you do seed or pre-seed. You know, whatever, multiple, like 50. It doesn't actually, maybe it's infinite, multiple.
'cause you don't even have revenue, right? Kind of all of that is just a game in the seed space in the series A, series B space. Suddenly it's, oh no, wait a minute. 15 x is pretty rich, actually. Uh, it's, it's pretty rich. And then when you think about it, oh my God, okay, wait, 15 x is rich. So in order to hit a million in valuation to be tripling on my last round.
I actually need to get to like, you know, six, seven, 8 million. When, when is that gonna happen? And then you look at your bank account, you're running a spreadsheet and you realize, oh, oh, that needs to happen in the next 18 month, or, you know, whatever. Like, you know, something more, you know, realistic [00:51:00] than that.
And, um. And then you have all those people that you hired and you sold them the same story, right? And kind of, and I think all of that, you know, the, the walls start closing in at some point. Um, and that's really just not fucking fun, you know? And, and then obviously from there you have the, oh, let's take the profitability path and let's try and kind of build this into a profitable business, uh, which could be kind of great for you and everyone around you, but definitely not your board.
They're like, um, I'm, I, I'm feeling like I'm wasting my time here now. Right. Um, or, or you, or you don't get that direction, kind of. We, we, we didn't, we didn't get to that point, so we were kind of, okay, we're kind of shutting doors here. Um, but I think that's, that combination of pressures, um, that that's, that's harder to, you know, to sleep at night with.
I feel.
Todd Busler: I think the problem is a lot of people, if you raise the bigger round, it's hard not to get. It kind of pressured into spending it a lot faster when you're not really even sure how to spend it. But you're like, okay, smart people that have [00:52:00] seen this are telling me to do that. Right. And I think that takes a certain level of discipline or Yeah.
Avoiding peer pressure almost.
Toni: No, for sure. And it's, it's kind of, to a degree, that's also the, the business, um, that those VCs in, right? They want to have you spend that money anyway. I still think like it's up to you as a CEO Come on. Start, you know. We, we, we shouldn't be crying about that stuff. It's like we are spending that cash, we are responsible.
Um, for sure. And I think that's, that's the only thing I think that I, you know, feel different about now. Um, and obviously the, you know, and this is, I mean, we are going way off topic here and let's kind of see how much we're kind of cutting out and leaving in. We usually keeping it in by the way. Um, it's like we, we talked about SalesLoft and Drift and clarity and so forth, right?
Um. I think you're absolutely right. Are those now shit companies? Like they're probably like two, 250 million in ar, maybe, maybe more. I don't know. Um, are [00:53:00] they, are they shit businesses? Two 50 million AR and probably profitable to a degree or burning very little. No, they're actually pretty good business.
You know, probably best, better businesses than most on the planet. Um, we just. We just compare them to no, you know, they will never live up to their investor expectations, which they won't, like that money is lost. Right. That's why we're calling it the, the Walking Dead or, you know, whatever. Um, but actually, you know, it doesn't mean that that business now needs to disappear because it's not fulfilling investor expectations.
It's still, you know. Growing GDP, it's still, you know, paying people's salaries. It's still enabling people to, you know, buy their home and get kids and, and, and like, it's still doing a lot of, you know, and obviously their, their, their customers are benefiting from this also a lot. Right. So it's like, it's actually good businesses.
We're just, um, with a very cynical approach, judging that to a degree. Right? And, and I, you know, coming from that. Um, [00:54:00] building a business without the VC thing, uh, really going in that, you know, going in that direction, just wanting to build a good business. Um, I think that's, that's not a bad thing. And I think actually, um.
LinkedIn and Twitter should change their stance a little bit on this instead of like always, oh, what you bootstrapped or you could, oh, it's because you couldn't get VC funny. That's why. Right. You know, having just a little bit, you know, a different approach to this thing. Um, and let's, let's see when that comes back.
Um. But, um, I mean there's some, you know, uh, famous stories now. Uh, but, um, let's see where this goes.
Closing Thoughts
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Toni: I think we're also up on time here. Todd, do you have like a, a last kind of closing statement here?
Todd Busler: Yeah, Tony, I appreciate talking through this with you. I think there's probably a lot of your listeners that are in, you know, CRO, VP sales role, go-to market leadership roles.
I think it's interesting to [00:55:00] hear your and I perspective of the least. Talking to tons of people, right? Yeah. Um, I think the learning, you know, and then I talked to you is like, there's a lot changing and I think like, yes, that makes things hard, but it does also, like if this podcast came across as negative, it does present a lot of opportunity, right?
Like it's easier than ever to start a company. It's easier than ever that get to some meaningful revenue with a small amount of teams. So like, it is a really exciting time. Um, and I'd encourage people that are hearing our journeys and wanting to make the jump. I would say do it too, because like regardless of how things may shake out financially and you know, a lot of that is to be written, there's just so much learning and fun and I feel like regardless what I do next, there's um, I'll be much better at it.
Toni: Yeah. Todd, thanks for summing it up. I couldn't have done it better myself. Thanks so much for the conversation. Um, thanks everyone else for listening and um, yeah, see you. See you next week. Cheers. Thanks, [00:56:00] Tony.
Next Week: Antoine Fort, CEO of Qobra
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Toni: Next week I'm talking to Antoine, CEO at Qobra, we talk about the terrible details of designing comp plans for usage based or outcome based models, which I know many of you suffer from, and you can make sure to piss off your best sales reps really fast.
If you don't wanna miss it, hit subscribe and see you next week.
Antoine Fort: Sales compensation is a ation driver for sales reps. You want to design a sales compensation program that is really gonna. Drive motivation and you want them to understand it. And the reality was when you're running comp in spreadsheets, the reps, they've got high chances that they don't understand well enough.
The comp plan, instead of driving motivation, you're creating frustration. When you're a sales rep, money matters a lot. Don't mess with money and and pay them super well because otherwise every time they're leaving it's a hell lot of lost revenue.