Craig Patterson: Welcome to 2023 and welcome to the Aryaka Dreamers and Doers podcast series. I'm excited. We're making some changes to the podcast going forward here. We're making it even better. With that, we're now going to be launching both audio and video so you can also tune in, and watch. By the way, I'm your host, Craig Patterson, Aryaka's Global Channel Chief and podcast series host. And with the Dreamers and Doers podcast, we bring together industry experts and busin ess technology leaders for candid conversation around key trends, best practices, and overall lessons in leadership.
And today, we're kicking off the new year with an amazing guest, a disruptive, transformational guest. This introduction could go on and on because this guy has a long history of success and achievement. A giant in the industry, he's an accomplished entrepreneur, he's the Co-founder and President of AVANT, a huge channel evangelist, a disruptor, fitness guy, and all-around amazing person. Drew, welcome to the Dreamers and Doers podcast.
Drew Lydecker: I love your title. I think it's super exciting. This isn't your normal podcast and I'm pumped about it.
Craig Patterson: Amazing. Well, here, let's go. What do you dream about here today and what are you doing at the moment to better our channel and to better our industry? So tell me those two things.
Drew Lydecker: In reference to work, what I'm dreaming about is a monster 2023 for everybody in our incredible industry.
Craig Patterson: Love that.
Drew Lydecker: Let's hope these macroeconomic pains that are happening, that are very real in the industry, start to go away over time here. I know that our December will be a record-breaking month for us as a company, so we're super excited about that. We hope that's great signs for 2023. But I think what I'm truly dreaming about is the maturity of the trusted advisor market. It's here, it's the de facto. In terms of what I'm doing around that, I’m writing. I wrote some articles this year that referenced the power of the trusted advisor. I'm the biggest cheerleader of the trusted advisor, I'd like to say, in the world. But what I'm really predicting is that this is the year that they become the de facto in the as-a-service movement. I said it at Special Forces this year, pinch me. You know, to be lucky enough to be in the channel and then to have the market go the way that it's going, which is really an as-a-service first market, doing things that no one IT staff could do on their own in this abundance of choice in the world that we live in, you'd be fired in my opinion, if you don't utilize the trusted advisor to navigate the pace of change that's happening in this space. And I believe that the de facto of the trusted advisor, that every major enterprise, medium and small business will start to lean heavily on the trusted advisor movement to make the best decisions around the world of choice in the as-a-service movement. And so I believe that this is going to be the defining year, the breakout year that TAs become household names inside of the enterprise world.
Craig Patterson: Man, I got to be honest with you. I'm getting chills here. What a time to be in the channel, right? For you and I to be channel professionals. It's been a long time in our career to see everything coming together right now. It's super exciting. By the way, just to comment around just the macroeconomy, I think in some cases, the current state of the macroeconomy could be beneficial and could create opportunity for companies like myself that are really pushing the envelope around digital transformation. As a lot of these companies are ripping and replacing these archaic legacy networks and becoming more efficient and effective and really building out that uniformity in terms of their architecture. Like this creates opportunity, my man. What do you think?
Drew Lydecker: Don't get me started. I'll take the rest of the podcast up on just that one topic alone. And you're right, no matter which way the economy goes, the TAs should absolutely flourish. I mean, it's up to the CIOs and the CTOs and the IT decision-makers to embrace this because if you're not evolving, you're dying. And as companies that are running the same ten-year playbook, they're terminally ill and they don't even know it. And I really, truly mean that. And I think we need to be saying that to IT in 2023. I've been saying this like a broken record. It's the year to challenge them because what's happening right now in the macroeconomic situation is you've got five signatures that need to happen. You've got everybody in their grandmother that needs to be involved because it's a multi-year contract and it's a big commitment to move to an Aryaka. But in all actuality, when you move into that next-generation technology along with the other as-a-service movement that's supported by the network that you guys would be creating, you're creating efficiencies. You're doing things, you're looking around the corner, you're setting yourself up for the future and you're building the structure internally that is really all about this new economy, this new world that we live in. And so you're right, no matter what, this year has to be a big year. And I think we must challenge IT that this isn't just swapping zeros and ones for zeros and ones, this is a fundamentally different way of doing business inside of IT.
And it's not cool anymore to rack and stack and build and create your own complexity and brag about it, what's cool is to give it to companies like Aryaka that can do it better than you could ever do it. And to do that in every aspect of your business, to be searching for the digital twin inside of your organization that you have been doing on your own. And I think only the trusted advisor has the true power, the capability, the scale with people like us to be able to go into a GE down to a mid-size, down to an SMB, and set them up for the future. Because this world right now is about your employees, we know that and how you take care of them and how they perform, but it's about CX on the outside and what people perceive of you and how they do that. And the best part, and I know for a fact that you and I never would have guessed this when we got into the channel back in the day, who would have ever thought that the channel is now the de facto in helping you get to that point? And so it's such an exciting time.
Craig Patterson: I love that, man. When we first started, I mean, the channel was kind of always associated as being kind of a stepchild, right? It was a necessary evil to do business. And most companies aligned that strategy more around SMB or mid-market, really, to cater towards the transactional space. And, man, how we flip the script on that right now, when you look at the primary route to market and these strategic, global, complex opportunities is coming through us, man. I mean, we're the channel that's really penetrating those opportunities. But one thing that's got me curious, and always I want to kind of learn more about is, like, people's journey. So let's talk about your journey, Drew. I know you went to school in New Hampshire, by the way, I love New Hampshire in the summer. It's amazing. It's beautiful country. You went to a school called Colby-Sawyer, and then somehow along the way, during that time frame, you said, I want to go into technology, which always is interesting. Like, how the heck did you end up there? How the heck did you end up in technology coming out of school?
Drew Lydecker: A lot of luck, I could tell you. A lot of luck. You know, it's funny how things happen in life, your through line of life, and especially, you know, graduating from Colby in the .com boom fail. I graduated in 2000. And, you know, finding our industry was a wild journey. You know, I can remember like it was yesterday looking on Monster.com for all the various gigs that were out there. But I got a lesson from my father. I grew up in a food service business. So if anybody is familiar with the food service industry, or maybe Sysco, if you've seen the big Sysco truck that exists out there, I wish that was my family's business, but it wasn't. We were a miniature little family-run business that was out of the northeast that we covered. And I learned that business, I learned distribution. I understood sales from that business. I understood relationships, I understood margins, all those different things. I always thought I was going to run that business. I thought that was going to be my future and it was funny.
My father said to me, listen, I know you want to do this and I know you want to come back into the family business, but I need you to do something different. I need you to go and sell the most expensive, most complex thing, and I need you to learn it like you have learned nothing else in your life. I need you to put 100% of your effort into it, something that has great margin, that's the future of some type of an industry. Go chase that, and if you want to come back, let me know five years later. Needless to say, I never came back. He's still asking. And I ended up landing at good old WorldCom, which so many incredibly talented people were at that disaster of a company. And we saw all the good and the bad that would happen in this industry. We saw what community and team building and true salesmanship is like, but we also saw the negative side of what happened in that company. And from there, obviously, WorldCom blew up, which was like getting an MBA at Harvard in reality of real world.
And I moved over to AT&T. Probably a pretty normal transition for a lot of people, and my life changed. I met Ian Kieninger, my future business partner, and my taller brother, as I like to call him, the fellow redhead. And he and I hit it off and we understood each other's talents and we understood a lot about the business and we were fascinated. But we were very interested in entrepreneurship very early on, even when we met AT&T, and Ian went over to CDW, where he was tasked to be the first person inside of management outside of the four walls. At the time, CDW hired only internally. Ian came in from the outside and helped build, really the largest trusted advisor in the world, and I joined forces with him and life changed. We got to understand this channel in a way that it would be difficult for me to learn it any other way, but being there and seeing what we were able to see and had an incredible run of building that company that really helped percolate the vision of AVANT.
Craig Patterson: That's amazing. By the way, you may not know this about me, but I started with Ian at AT&T right out of college as well. So we ended up with the same training facility way back when right out of college.
Drew Lydecker: Again, it's amazing. Like, I think about WorldCom and how many incredible people came out of WorldCom, how much talent was there. But then I think also about AT&T and a lot of you guys that came out, is that the Tuck School or what was it?
Craig Patterson: It’s Tuck, and by the way, my first boss ever, Chris Jones.
Drew Lydecker: Wow. Yeah.
Craig Patterson: Chris Jones, who runs AT&T channel now.
Drew Lydecker: We're all product of extraordinary circumstances, it's none of us graduated to get into the channel, right? But how we got here and we joke this whole world jokes, once you're in, you're never coming out. But the truth is you're not because of the power of it and how explosive. I mean, think about those days when you were there at AT&T to where the industry is today, right? It is just extraordinary. And so many cool, talented people came out of that program that you guys were in.
Craig Patterson: Yeah, it was awesome. So what an amazing way to start for you and what great leadership by your dad, really, to challenge you to go tackle the hardest challenge, the most complex thing to sell. So you owe him a lot, you owe him something very very nice for kind of setting the stage for you there.
Drew Lydecker: I do.
Craig Patterson: But let's talk about the AVANT time period. So you really build a foundational knowledge set in terms of your time at WorldCom and AT&T and CDW. Talk to me about the brainstorming and the evolution of AVANT, like, when did that occur? How did you and Ian decide to jump and create AVANT? How did that all percolate?
Drew Lydecker: It's super interesting. We were at CDW at the time. It's a massive organization at the time. I can't remember the exact revenue, but it has since doubled, if not tripled since then. But while we were there and building out the program in our early years, it was very much kind of the big blue type, like carrier relationships that kind of existed. I think that the funky, interesting companies were like Global Crossing, and if you remember at the time, but it was still predominantly dominated by the biggest of big companies. And prior to CDW, it was really dominated like the big blues of the world, that was really where IT was done.
And when we landed at CDW, you could start to see this world of choice started coming on, right? You had colo-neutral facility starting to pop up out of nowhere and Equinix. You started having these Broadwing’s and Global Crossing’s and others that were a different type of story and did things better in some areas than what traditional people did. So you had all these things emerging and we got to see it firsthand. And I can't exactly remember, but I think we were supporting around 2500 account managers and the deal flow is insane. And one of the things that's very unique about us is that we all came from and all were salespeople and we were trusted advisors. And so that, I think, is fundamentally different in a lot of the TSDs that exist today is that we carried bags. As a matter of fact, almost this entire company has carried a bag. But that mindset, that DNA, that ability to be in the trenches really helped form what this company became.
When you build a firm like AVANT, you have to pick one side or the other, right? You can't be in the selling and into distribution, you have to be one or the other. That's a fact. And so we made the choice to be really the platform for the future of what we like to call and we named it the trusted advisor. Somebody that was helping understand the confusion of the world of choice that we saw coming at an alarming rate. Did we ever think the unified communication space would explode like it has? Or the CcaaS space would explode like it has? Or the IaaS or DRaaS or DaaS or BaaS. I mean, no, but we did. But we knew that choice was going to continue to expand, and people wanted to buy from companies like Aryaka that are laser-focused on a few core things and they're better at it than anybody else on the planet. As opposed to maybe going to other people that provided you everything under the kitchen sink.
Craig Patterson: Exactly.
Drew Lydecker: And that world was only going to expand. And so that really helped us start to formulate what AVANT would look like. And as anybody in business that has entrepreneur background or wanting to do that, you always brainstorm and you see. And I think we saw that an Iron Man suit needed to be put on a trusted advisor to allow them where the enemy is coming from, to give them the intelligence that they need as the market increased, the ability to do things that you can't do alone that you can only do in a community-based approach. When you surround yourself by the best, you run with the ones that run the fastest, you automatically climb levels far faster. And that was really the idea and the vision of AVANT, and it was a very end customer focus with the trusted advisor movement.
Craig Patterson: Man, that's awesome. To me, it's almost like destiny. Like all these pieces fell into place, right? I mean, the perfect market opportunity that was ready for transformation, right? The team, the team you've assembled, you got just amazing people that all came together on the same mission, and I think your timing was perfect. It's been really fun for me being in the channel to really watch and see you guys succeed and scale and grow. I'm really excited for you guys in terms of what's next, and I'd like to talk about that. I think there's a couple of things that have happened recently that people are curious about. Number one, you made a big acquisition last calendar year with PlanetOne, by the way, I love those guys. Ted and team are just fantastic people, they run an unbelievable business. So talk to me about that. What was the strategy around that acquisition? And then the other big moment, obviously, is the growth capital, right? You guys create a partnership with a private capital company or growth capital company. Talk to me about that situation and what does that really do for AVANT here going forward?
Drew Lydecker: I love it. Yeah. So first I'll start from a capital perspective, we did go through a process. We realized that the market was changing. There was some things that Ian and I were extremely fortunate to have created a kind of rocket ship company that we started in 2009. We're not even that old and had a lot of success that allowed us to get to a point where we were able to pick our own destiny when it came to a capital partner. And as everybody that's probably listening and anybody that's in this industry knows, we were also part of this explosion of outside money that has come into this space. And it's because smart money understands that next-generation decision-making will be done through this model, that will be done through this channel and the power of this channel.
If you look back at the VAR channel in the early 90s, you could draw tons of similarities to what is taking place in the trusted advisor movement today. And so funding everything on our own became something that became challenging as the market started to explode. And quite frankly, COVID came and changed absolutely everything for everybody. And it exploded us and it exploded the movement as being really the largest platform around technology like unified communications, next-gen networking, and CcaaS, all of those things just went and we happen to be great benefactors of that. But we were really sitting in the center of the storm of the as-a-service movement being created. And so it allowed us to be big enough to go out and pick our own process, pick our own partner. And we really picked our dream partner from the beginning of the process to the end. It was really who we felt so comfortable with, who believed in our management staff, who believed in our leadership team, and believed in our vision and provided us the firepower to be able to go out and get people like PlanetOne who was just such a natural pickup for us.
I would like to say that when it comes to culture, that's probably the one thing that consistently keeps me up at night. I think culture is everything. And if anybody's followed AVANT, our culture is what we're known for and it's what our TAs love about us. And so when you make an acquisition, you have to think culture-first. In my opinion, you could be Wall Street and put that to the side, but I firmly believe that if you have the ability to make your own decisions, culture is king. And so their culture was just such a fit. We'll never have an acquisition go so smoothly, we'll never have a culture fit so incredibly amazing in terms of how we literally married up from day one like we had been together forever. And we bought them for a lot of reasons. One, their culture. Two, they were really, really strong in the west, where we were really building momentum. It was kind of our last frontier in the United States, and they also had arguably the best back office in the industry, period. Their white glove touch and ability to track everything and anything that ran through their system. It's what made their customers so loyal and believe in the PlanetOne experience. And so it just became something that we knew it was one plus one equals five, and we had to make it happen, and it's been seriously one of the greatest things we've done.
Craig Patterson: Congratulations. What a great pickup. I agree. By the way, the culture there is amazing. I mean, you talk about the passion that just exudes from the whole PlanetOne team.
Drew Lydecker: LFG, baby. LFG.
Craig Patterson: LFG.
Drew Lydecker: I'm going to get an LFG tattoo at some point in time. They're driving that in my head. They're so fired up.
Craig Patterson: That's great. It's a perfect marriage there between the two organizations. So when we first started, you talked about some articles you were involved in last year, and one that really caught my attention, really had a bold title, right? And I loved it, by the way. I thought it was perfect for where we are in the state of our channel, and it simply was titled, Direct Sales are Dead, and I think the publication was Profile Magazine or something. So talk to me about that. What's your vision around Direct Sales are Dead? And give me some more predictions around that.
Drew Lydecker: First and foremost, thanks for bringing that up because I am super proud of that. Even though it was, I think, what? 1300 words, it wasn't incredibly long. And let me just tell everybody that's listening, the small things matter in life, meaning that title, boy, that was thought-provoking. So much so that I've heard some recent statistics that it's been clicked on about 140,000,000 times on Google. If you google it, Direct Sales is Dead, it's the first thing that should show up on Google, which this has been a heavily written about topic and communicated in a bazillion different ways. It's been read now 1.4 million times, which is incredible in terms of the amount of eyeballs that has received. But I wrote it because, one, obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the biggest cheerleader of the trusted advisor movement, to me, is the biggest no-brainer an IT staff could utilize today as they're readying for the future. But I really wrote it because I believe direct sales– There are parts of direct sales that will never die, okay? And I firmly believe that. But if you really think about the world of choice that everyone lives in today, and you can look at any aspect of your life, both personal, business, what have you, you're always seeking advice, you're always trying to make the best decision, and anything that you're really investing a lot of money into that's kind of mission-critical. You'll find yourself asking a lot of people a lot of opinions when it comes to making those decisions. And trusted advisors in so many different spaces are just rising upright.
For you and I, running huge sales staffs and large businesses, we're not going to go and pick our own 401Ks or we're not going to go and pick our own insurance policies and benefits for our companies that are growing. We're going to go and rely on an expert who, based on our size, our scope, and making sure culture first. We're doing the best that we can possibly do for our employees. Well, why wouldn't you want to do that for anything, quite honestly, when it comes to making big key decisions? And I believe that the world of a few companies, those are over. The world of choice, it's here to stay. And being supermassive, like crazy, crazy huge, massive is a detriment. Being in the smaller, the ability to navigate and move as the markets move or as technology moves, that's in vogue, and it's just exploded, this world of choice. And the trusted advisor's sole job is to navigate the pace of choice and to match make and then to be your advocate, your extension of your IT staff as you have these relationships which are long term. You can't do that when you're a direct seller. You can't recommend your competition. You can't say you're okay at something and talk about the other competitor over there. You need to kind of do whatever it takes to get in as much into the door as humanly possible. Well, I believe in the sales process. Why would anyone want to buy from someone like that? Why wouldn't you want to buy from somebody who is agnostic in nature, who is fed with information on a day-by-day basis of where the markets are going, what's relevant, what's working, what's not, who has a pulse on the industry, who has a choice? And I think that all parties gain from that. So, to me, Direct Sales are Dead is a direct reflection of the way that this market is going, especially in technology.
Craig Patterson: No, I agree with you 100%. I mean, choice is king, right? It sparks innovation and really enables people to have options. So I agree with you 1000%, bro, 1000%. So let's talk about some of the key initiatives that AVANT is really focused on here for this year. You guys have done a lot, obviously, the PlanetOne acquisition, you guys took on the growth capital. How are you going to deploy that growth capital? Where are you guys going here in 2023? What are the key things you're focused on?
Drew Lydecker: First and foremost, one of the things personally that I'm focused on is I wrote another article, The Power of the aaS, the as-a-service movement, and how big that's getting and that's gotten a lot of press. I'm really putting the trusted advisors on my back. I want to go to every single company and I want to rattle their cages and I want to let them know that this movement is here and it's coming and you need it right now. And the 10-year playbook, get rid of it because it's time to bring in the new. It's time to get ready for the future, in 2023 it starts. And so I'm going to finish that off, I've got another article coming out in the next couple of weeks here that will all be about the trusted advisor. And quite frankly, if you're a CIO and you're listening and not utilizing them, you might be fired if you don't utilize them. I think that that will be something I'll continue to keep doing.
There's some big exciting things, I won't let the cat out of the bag on that that are coming from that. From an AVANT perspective, we're going to continue to build the Iron Man suit for the trusted advisor. And my prediction is the trusted advisors which used to be, as you know, sometimes the one man, the one lady boss, one man boss, one whatever the case may be. But smaller companies are becoming more sophisticated, they're starting to scale. They're also starting to understand how to partner with a platform like ours to scale 10x, to be able to do things they could never just do on their own, to provide their customers really the intelligence, the intellectual property that will separate them from everyone else. And in a trusted advisor, you're a time multiplier right now and you're helping IT staff do things that no IT staff could really do on their own when it comes to not only making great decisions but living with that decision for the life of the contract.
And so this year we're going to continue to reinforce research and analytics. Our enablement, our back office, Pathfinder 2 is coming. The single greatest weapon in our business, the ultimate weapon when you go into an account to help them be that time multiplier, making the right decision, so our new baby is coming and I'm going to tell you it is unbelievable. We're going to continue to invest in our people. We're consistently bringing on, I'm sure you've seen in LinkedIn and the press, we've been bringing on some subject matter experts at an alarming rate. We're going to continue to do that but we're going to stay true to us. We're going to stay true to this industry, get behind the trusted advisor movement, and hopefully accelerate it into maturity.
Craig Patterson: Awesome. I love that exciting year for you. Can't wait to see you guys really hone in on the research, the enablement. I can't wait to see Pathfinder 2.0, so be sure when it's ready to launch and let me know. I can't wait to check it out. So let's talk about something that's been impactful to you personally, Drew, and I know there's somebody that you follow that's made a huge impact on your, I'd say, personal and professional path right just in our space. And that person is a guy by the name of Jesse Itzler, he has a company called Elite365. So tell me what that's all about and how that's really helped you and shape you to be the person you are.
Drew Lydecker: Jesse is definitely a huge influence in my life, and I think he's become a huge influence in this industry. We've had him speak now twice at Special Forces, and maybe it'll be a third, who knows? We also have him coming on, I believe, February 16, he's going to be– For anybody that attended Special Forces, I think he's going to be coming on on February 16. Look out for an invite if you attended Special Forces.
But, yeah, Jesse, in some ways, there's a lot of motivational people out there today. There's a lot of people that walk across coals and do all kinds of crazy things, but Jesse is a different breed from that. He's obviously an incredibly successful entrepreneur, but really what he hones in on is time. There's 1440 minutes a day, are you utilizing each and every minute to the best of your ability? Are you creating stories throughout your life that will be something you're super proud about when you get older and you want to tell your stories and making sure that life doesn't pass you by? But pushing yourself to a point that you can kind of do anything you want. And so Elite365 is a very small group of like-minded individuals that have made a commitment with each other to do really crazy things, push the boundaries of comfort, and learn from others. Some of the best Navy Seals and the best coaches in the world, the best endurance coaches, the best breath coaches, the best meditation coaches, and incorporate that into your life. And so this will be my second year in Elite 365 coming up. I've got, I think, four retreats with Jesse this year, which will be mental, and they'll definitely be my big event personally.
Craig Patterson: That's awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. I can't wait to see more of the content from Jesse Itzler. I'd like to know what are some of those crazy things you're up to? So you have to share with me at some point along the way. But last question, man– So, by the way, I really have enjoyed this podcast. Thanks for sharing all the detail around AVANT and just your initiatives and where you're going just hugely impactful. Very excited to see the growth continue. Talking about your predictions, what do you predict here for 2023? What's your number one prediction?
Drew Lydecker: In terms of prediction, I don't know because I sometimes struggle with this to what I want to have happen, to what will happen. But I do believe that 2023 will be the year the trusted advisors fundamentally challenge the status quo of it and that the as-a-service movement will be planted as the priority through this channel, to be the number one focus on every single IT staff's mind. COVID changed everything, its effect. And if you look at your space, really, the networking space, for instance, not a lot has changed in like 15 years, right? I mean, heck, there might be a handful of accounts out there still running frame relay. I bet you there are.
Craig Patterson: I bet you're right.
Drew Lydecker: Yeah. I often joke like IT sometimes the last group of people to realize the cool guy haircut, right? I mean, it's kind of a joke because they've been doing kind of the same thing a lot of times, the same way. And COVID came and changed everything. And thus the trusted advisor movement exploded and now you have this world of choice and it's different than just zeroes and ones. It's about potentially fundamentally changing your company. The way you look, the way you operate, the way that you perceive your provider relationship, and it's across every vertical. And so it's imperative for the trusted advisor to challenge that status quo. But I think the acceptance of this movement, it's here, and it's here to stay in. 2023 will be the year it happens.
Craig Patterson: Love it. Well, I'm going to make a prediction right now for AVANT and Aryaka together. You ready?
Drew Lydecker: Ready.
Craig Patterson: I'm ready. All right, so here's my prediction. We, Aryaka, are going to be the number one SaaS provider in 2023, AVANT. We're going to have more revenue success than any other provider you have in your portfolio today. By the way, we just kicked that off already with that amazing win we just had recently. Very nice $80,000 win we enjoyed together. So that is my prediction to you, Drew.
Drew Lydecker: I love it. And I'll tell you right now, your passion that you have brought since joining Aryaka, it is absolutely felt by everybody here. The energy around what you guys are doing from mat down, we feel it. Your technology is the biggest no-brainer, in my opinion. You are the super highway of everything in this API economy. You are more needed than anybody could even imagine. And I think, again, it's going to take the trusted advisor world to realize what they have with companies like you that can fundamentally change companies, can fundamentally change applications, can fundamentally change the way companies operate. And people need to think big when I talk about that because the years of doing it the same old are over. And I think if you don't move to these new ways of doing things, you will be fired. And I think Aryaka is going to be one of the biggest disruptors this year, too.
Craig Patterson: I love that you said it so well. By the way, my man, thank you so much for spending time. Drew Leidecker, Co-Founder President of Avant, culture’s everything, and Direct Sales are Dead.
And Drew, there's only one thing more to do, my friend. I'm going to give a little one, two, three. And we're going to get an AVANT, Aryaka, let's go. And we're going to wrap this thing up. You ready?
Drew Lydecker: Yeah.
Craig Patterson: All right. Here we go. One, two, three. AVANT and Atyaka.
Drew Lydecker: LFG.
Craig Patterson: LFG. You said it. Thank you, my man.
