EXPERIENCE 160 | Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood Florist SOLD! - Exclusive Interview with Tim and Danielle Jordan, owners of SG Window Tint and Mold Removal Express (and former owners of Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood Florist)

Tim and Danielle Jordan joined me in The LoCo Experience studios on March 5, 2024 - just 4 days removed from concluding the sale of a pair of legacy businesses in Northern Colorado - Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood Florist, locally owned since 1976 and 1933, respectively.  They sold to one of the largest flower enterprises in America - Family Flowers, a privately owned company that operates legacy flower shops all across the country..  

I met Tim in the spring of 2015, soon after he and Danielle had purchased the majority stake in Palmer Flowers from its founder, Spiro Palmer.  Spiro became one of my first banking clients when I moved to Fort Collins in 1999, and I was initially shocked that he’d pass his legacy along to such a young guy!  The more I got to know Tim however, the more I came to understand what a fine decision Spiro had made, and I’ve kept a patient but consistent bug in Tim’s ear about how much he’d love to be in a LoCo Think Tank chapter!  This last fall when we caught up over lunch, Tim shared that it was probably never going to happen - as he and Danielle operate the businesses in a tandem effort, and if he was in a peer advisory chapter he’d feel off-balance with her and what has worked for them for since they started their first business together while still in college.  

Disappointed but charmed by his respect for his partner, and intrigued to get to know Danielle a bit more, we scheduled a podcast conversation.  After a postponement due to illness we landed in this timely spot, just days removed from their biggest business transaction to date.  Tim and Danielle have been together since high school in Albuquerque, NM, and came to Fort Collins to attend CSU.  Tim is full of business ideas and marketing talent, and Danielle keeps a sharp eye on the numbers, and together they’ve run as many as 5 businesses at a time!  They’re also kind and charming, smart and savvy, and I know you’ll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Tim and Danielle Jordan.  

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/

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Transcript

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Jordan joined me in the Loco Experience Studios on March 5th, 2024, just four days removed from concluding the sale of a pair of legacy businesses in Northern Colorado, Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood Florist, locally owned since 1976 and 1933, respectively. They sold to one of the largest flower enterprises in America, Family Flowers, a privately owned company that operates legacy flower shops all across the country. I met Tim in the spring of 2015, soon after he and Danielle had purchased the Majority Steak and Palmer Flowers from its founder, Spiro Palmer. Spiro became one of my first banking clients when I moved to Fort Collins in 1999, and I was initially shocked that he'd pass along his legacy to such a young guy. The more I got to know Tim, however, the more I came to understand what a fine decision Spiro had made, and I've kept a patient but consistent bug in Tim's ear about how much he'd love to be in a loco think tank chapter. This last fall, when we caught up over lunch, Tim shared that it was probably never going to happen. As he and Danielle operate the business in a tandem effort, and if he was in a peer advisory chapter, he'd feel off balance with her, and what has worked for them since they started their first business together while still in college. Disappointed, but charmed by his respect for his partner, and intrigued to get to know Danielle a little bit more, we scheduled a podcast conversation. After a postponement due to illness, we landed in this timely spot, just days removed from their biggest business transaction. To date, Tim and Danielle have been together since high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and came to Fort Collins to attend CSU. Tim is full of business ideas and marketing talent, and Danielle keeps a sharp eye on the numbers and together they've run as many as five businesses at a time. They're also kind and charming, smart and savvy, and I know you'll enjoy, as I did my conversation with Tim and Danielle Jordan. Welcome back to the loco experience. My guests today are Tim and Danielle Jordan, and they are the owners of SG window tint mold removal express. And as of very recently, uh, former owners now of Palmer Flowers as well as Paul Wood Florist. How does it feel to get out of the flower business? It was bittersweet, but, um, it was the right move for us. So, so we're excited and we're excited for our people and for our community. Spiro Palmer was one of my first notable clients, um, that I ever interacted with when I first moved to town. Oh, how funny. Yeah, no, and uh, so quite a legacy, quite an opportunity. You know, he even said way back then, you know. Selling flowers for money is kind of for suckers. You get real estate's where it's at. Yeah. You get sucked into the flower industry cause it's such a fun thing to be able to give somebody that exciting flowers there, especially when you're there for their big occasions. And so it's easy to, to. Push all the other money stuff aside and just focus on that. And, um, well, you do it well and I'm sure it can work. Uh, it's just such a, like the ups and downs and the seasonality of it. And just, you know, imagine like supply chain. All of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a creative manufacturing business, which those two things are very complicated to manage together. Um, I, I would say that we had a really good hold on it and COVID kind of switch things up a little bit. And, um, yeah, there, there was a national group and the name's family flowers, uh, Brian and Kevin McCarthy is who came in. Oh, that's cool. And, um, we've known them for a long time. I met them a long time ago and this is their model. to, to buy high market share, high brand value, uh, flower operations and they overlay their services on top of it. Right. So a lot of things become easier, lower price point on your cost of goods sold because of their buying power. All those things, that's kind of the same reason that there's hardly any independent veterinary practices. For sure. Right. Very few flowers in the same way. Um, let's set the stage a little bit. You guys have been entrepreneurs together for. What, over a decade? 2010. Yeah. Okay. That's when we got our first business. Almost 15 years. Tell me, um, and maybe Danielle, I'll start with you. Yeah. Why don't you share with me, like, your divination of duties and what you guys, what roles you guys serve for these companies. Yeah. So Tim and I are very different business people. He is more marketing, creative, strategic planning. I am a hundred percent accounting. Um, I love to have facts and so that's kind of where we've divvied up. I'm also a big advocate for all of our people within any industry we have. So I've kind of taken over the HR side of things. Yeah. Um, HR is definitely not my favorite way to go, but I do love my people wholeheartedly. So it's kind of just naturally gone that way. Um, but I, um, I am the pessimist. I will look at worst case scenarios. Tim will look at the absolute best case scenarios and then we find somewhere in the middle. And that seems to work the best. I've heard of, uh, heard it said before MBA, too much about finance and money and you're like, Oh, yeah, well, let's, I mean, I would say that probably my general character has been to, you know, set really high goals. And then frankly make it about a third of the way there, you know, and uh, so having that strong financial understanding with that vision probably has been a propellant for you guys. Yeah. It, it was the case where I had to justify every deal, you know, that we did, right. Cause back in, in 2010 through 2015, we did a lot of deals very, very quickly. And, but we looked at 10 times the number of those deals and it just, I had to prove it and then prove it and prove it again, which was a great exercise and it worked out very, very well for us. Well, we'll jump into how you jumped into business a little bit here. Um, let's set the stage. What was Paul, uh, Paul Woods, Palmer Flowers? Tell me about like locations, staffings, just a little bit. And then, uh, also about the other two companies that you still. Yeah, the, uh, so the flower shop, uh, Palmer Flowers is, uh, three locations of the, the brand Palmer Flowers. One here in Fort Collins, one in, uh, Lakewood, and one in, uh, One in Loveland. I didn't realize there was a Lakewood. Oh, excuse me. Loveland, not Lakewood. Loveland. In Greeley. Okay. Apologize. So one in Fort Collins, one in Loveland, and one in Greeley. So you've got the Tri Cities covered. Exactly. Um, about, uh, So, and Paul Wood is a boutique add on to that, so they operate it as their own brand, but really, kind of, our service is overlaid on top, the Palmer Flowers service is overlaid Oh, not distinct locations even? Nope, just the one location in Old Town Fort Collins. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, It's kind of merged together within Palmer Flowers. Gotcha. Did you send like more of your weddings to Paul Wood and stuff like that? It became kind of the specialty brand more? Yes. Um, it really became the brand of kind of downtown, kind of a more urbane, um, you know, walk in. What you would feel is more like a back east flower shop. Yeah. So. I'd say most of our weddings stayed with Palmer, um, out of, we had kind of three locations, but we have one main location that we service some of that out. Um, but Paul would, you know, started during the great depression. So it's, uh, been downtown, um, forever. It's just an amazing brand longterm. So that's why we kept that brand separate. Um, but really the whole team merged together when it comes to the brand. When it came to even having to. Actual operations. orderings. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Company picnics. Yeah, even if we needed help at one store versus the other, we could easily pull from any of our locations and have a designer either from Loveland or Greely to come and help you at Pellwood, or in the main store. If we had a big wedding. And so we were able to have a lot of those shared services in between. As needed. Well, scale really helps, I imagine, in your business. Yep, yep. So, but the other very interesting thing about it is that it was, uh, employee owned. So we had eight employee owners. Um, each, generally somebody from each of the locations, or each key department in the, in the organization. Okay. Worked pretty darn well. Some of those were, you know, Most of those were inherited from acquisition time or that no, there was only two remaining from when we acquired the business from From Palmer's. Yep. There were four at the time two had retired. Oh, I see. I see added five or six I remember that was part of like when he was shopping for a buyer It's like well somebody that has is that's willing to allow my long term employees to become Co owners as part of what I want to see. Yeah So you guys continued that with Paul Wood, too, then? Very much. Very much. The, um, uh, GM of Paul Wood, Sue Charles, I saw today. She's amazing and has been a pillar for Palmer Flowers. I mean, she's obviously the backbone of Paul Wood, but she's a pillar for the Palmer brand as well. She's just one of the nicest people you'll ever meet in the world, too. Um, anybody who meets her immediately leaves the room and they're just like, oh my gosh, I loved her. She's just one of those people that you can just immediately trust and you just love. Yeah, we know those kind of people. It's a, it's a super power for sure. It's amazing. Is she staying with the brand then and stuff too? She is. Yeah. Yeah, so that's part of it. It's the shops, but it's also the talent pool that's been developed. Cause it It's not that easy to like, it takes a while to make a good floral designer. I suspect. Yeah, they, that's, that's what this team targeted, um, was, was brand equity and, uh, the people. Um, but yet it's really interesting cause they, I mean, all had a plan to exit all the owners, but they got a, a quality exit all up front as well as have the opportunity to keep their job. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which. Which was a big realization to us of, hey, you know, the only time they could recognize that equity was at a departure. Right. Right. Um, they were thrilled to not have that. And also just some, like, brand new opportunities that, you know, really they couldn't have with us. Um, so just like some traveling to help with other florists in other states or different design opportunities. So, um, It's a completely different little outlook on some day to day operations, change it up a little bit. So, everyone seems real excited. Yeah. I'm excited. If it works, like, everybody kind of wins, right? Like, when these kind of things work. And I'm glad to hear it's a family owned company rather than some kind of a stock market chase and No. And they're just good people. Um, I mean, just their, how they've interacted. with our staff so far. It's just been phenomenal. Um, just truly does seem like they care and they're going out of their way doing some things they don't need to be doing. And it's just, it kind of re solidifies that this was an awesome choice. And this was just, this was last Friday and today is Tuesday. It's very fresh. So you're walking around with a big wad right now, wondering what you're going to spend all that money on. You got a Tesla, a Cybertruck in your order stage? No, it's um, winding up an entity like this, because it was an asset sale, as they typically are, it's way more complicated than you think. Even people who have been on both sides of multiple transactions. When you're talking the size that, that, that it was, it is more complicated. So it take, we'll take some time to realize those gains. It's going to be a really crazy few months between transitioning, getting everybody, you know, I'll transition to their side and winding up a business too. Cause I mean, well, as much as we're training them, I still have all my normal day to day operations that I need to finish up and do. So it's going to be a little hectic next 30 days. And then hopefully we'll simmer down a little bit after that. Well, I'm really honored that. You took the time to be in here today, despite all that stuff that's going on. Um, let's talk about briefly, and we'll, I want to come back to the flower conversation because I think it's a really interesting business that is mysterious to most people. Um, but let's talk about the other companies. SG Window Tint, is that your longest held? Yep, we bought that in 2010. It was a brand name of Sunglow at the time. It was a commercial residential only window tinting company. Okay. So, um, we tint Homes and businesses. Yeah. Yeah, we bought what we bought there was relationships real strong ones Denver Broncos see you. Oh, wow Yeah, some real big commercial clients out of Denver that are still clients of ours today But okay today it looks a lot different now. We have we have two locations Lakewood actually And and Fort Collins here up and actually not too far from where we're at here in Old Town Fort Collins, okay Yeah, because you moved you were over in uh Lincoln or, uh, Lincoln Plain area there, but yeah, now we're right off of on Jefferson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jefferson, uh, mountain basically. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so in, uh, now we're 50 50, uh, half commercial residential, which we're, we're one of the larger commercial residential, uh, tenders in the state of Colorado and then, but the other half of our business is all tint and paint protection film on retail customers. So cars. Yep. Oh, and paint protection film. So not like a crazy vehicle wrap, but if you just want your car to be. All white. Yep. We can do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's clear or matte finish. Oh, I see more about like the front ends and different things like that with real wear points. You can't do full vehicle though. Really? It looks awesome. That's cool. Yeah. So big push on, uh, changing the finish of the paint with a protection film. So running a gloss paint job, all matte. Right. Um, now it's popular. It's very popular. It's expensive. And the materials are very expensive. And the labor ain't too cheap either, I reckon. Yep. So, um, that, um, and when I say retail, we are working with all typically newer or new to you, but typically higher end vehicles. Um, it's a, um, You want to get flames in your Corvette, it's a good place to do it. Plus super dark tint windows. Will your tint windows be on the recommended factory, or the recommended Colorado state allowances? Yes, um, Colorado state allowances are kind of bogus. Totally. They, in fact, most of our vehicles are illegal in the state of Colorado. Right. Well, I totally had super dark tint windows on my Astrovan that I just got rid of. Nice. And, uh, Like, nobody's ever said boo. No. I think most vehicles actually come with the back actually illegal, like, from the manufacturer. Yeah, so a lot of times we'll tend to that to match, and then obviously if we're doing windshield or something, we make sure that it's safe. But it's not your job to enforce dumb laws in the state of Colorado. We inform our customer, um, but at the end of the day, it's their decision. Yeah. And Daniel, you keep, have the same role here, obviously, you're the money girl. I don't do a whole lot from day to day operations on this one. I've kind of pulled myself from that. Um, when we first got it, I ran it, and Tim had a job, and then we switched, um, when I went to school to get my master's degree and get my CPA license. So then at that point, he took over, um, And I got a job. Oh, for sure him. Yeah, for sure. No, it's totally good. I'm an accountant at heart, like I said. Um, sales are hard for me. Marketing ideas. None of that comes natural to me, but like, give me a spreadsheet or anything in QuickBooks and I'm your, I'm your man. So. Yeah. Well, that's super useful. So now I do, I do all of the back end. I do all of our accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, um, and that sort. Yeah. And the model, just quickly, is a heavy performance based compensation model. So, everyone, even the receptionist, is paid on commission. Oh, interesting. And, um, it took a while to get a base of the right people, but with the right people, it It just kind of crushes it out. It runs itself. Talk to me more about that, because that sounds pretty Like, you don't need You have to make sure they at least pay Make a minimum wage kind of a thing in some fashion, but but like, how's the receptionist get money on commissions? Yeah, so they They get 2 percent of all the auto appointments that they schedule. So which is The reason we did it that way is it's similar to how the inside the install gets 30 percent Obviously, that's their entire Okay. The, the, um, receptionist has an hourly base also, but, um, yeah, so they're not contractors. Nope. They're employees, but they get 30 percent of the ticket kind of. For our install techs, they're contractors. Yeah. Because they make their own schedules. Well, that's what I was going to say. It sounds more like a project based thing. Our receptionists, they are all employees. Okay. Um, so that, because we get, we, you know, regulate their hours when they need to be there and then they have an hourly wage on top. So. Yeah. Is that. Was it hard to track all that? Um, it was. At least not. As CRMs have gotten better, I've gotten a little bit into database development and app developments. We just um, every time something changes we have a um, you know, proprietary database that calculates all of our payroll. So not really anymore. Does that make you uncomfortable or you can go back in there and find out how all the math got done? No, I, well, it's not very I do often times ask if it's correct. If it's way too much. If it's, usually, if I'm like, this seems really high, I will be like, Can you please go back and confirm all these? And he does, and sometimes it's wrong, and most of the time it's not. Um, but, at this point, it's We're, we're pretty good about it, I think. It's pretty automated, so it's an export out of a CRM or ERP. Yeah. And then just the app that's built to upload and calculate all the commissions. Well, and usually your employees will let you know if you didn't pay them enough. Yeah. Yeah. Probably won't if you do pay them too much. Yep. Also true. And the, uh, the way we built it, it sends them out an itemized. Is that pretty much the staffing, then, is you've got some reception, customer service, and some installer techs. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. That's it. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Cleaning crew comes in once in a while, they don't have to bother with that. Yeah, if the store has a cleaning person who comes in, yeah. Yeah, so it's, I mean, it has its ups and downs, but generally it does a pretty good job of running itself because good people get paid higher than market. Yeah. Because they are able to leverage their skills. Well, how do they, Influence the number of customers coming in or is that all you trying to drive it with with marketing Google Ads different? Whatever's kind of thing or what's the secret to getting customers in that business? So I would say To answer the first part of the question. Um, we drive all of the initial leads, a hundred percent, right? That's, and we can talk about that, but that's AdWords, social, um, all that kind of stuff, but I think that they probably have a bigger determination on how many customers I get, how well they present the product, how well they send out the quotes, how aggressive they are, not aggressive, how thorough they are in their follow up procedures. Do they ask for referrals? So they, that's how they influence things. That's the easiest. Way to describe it as if we're having winter. We're having a slow week. Whatever. It's easy for me to call You know Jasmine today and say hey, we have a slow week at our Denver shop. Could you call last week's Denver? Quotes that haven't responded to us and see if you can get a few people and you can offer them a 10 percent discount Yeah, there's no coaching needed. Yep Well, especially when she gets 2 percent of every ticket exactly. Yeah, that's really You're smarter than you look. I've said that a few times. So, um, I think I've got a sketch out of SG. Yeah. Uh, talk to me about SG, by the way. Why is it SG after being Sun Chaser or something? Yeah, it was Sun Glow. Sun Glow. Huge mistake I made. Um, so in 2016 when we were opening the first automotive shop in Lakewood. Okay. Um, We didn't know a lot about the automotive side of the business. In fact, we knew way less than we thought we did. So, but I was really worried about, um, um, diluting the established, uh, very professional, uh, commercial residential side of the business. So I had the brilliant idea of, uh, bringing in auto only kind of brand. Exactly. Yeah, we were like, let's do it. Spent a bunch of money, got some graphic designs done. We did Denver Auto Tint. We were like, we're going to be in Denver. We're going to make it really easy for people to know. Right. Yes. Brands. SEO finding and stuff like that, right? That's exactly what it was. But we already had a great brand. So it worked. That's, it wasn't that it not worked, it's that then we grew and then all of a sudden we have three brands. Right. And they're like, ugh. Fort Collins Auto Yeah, actually the first time I visited your shop on Link Lane, it was Fort Collins Auto Check. Yeah. So I bit the bullet in two thousand It's been a few years. Oh, I'm sorry. 2021, 2022. 2022. And we re, all the collateral, all the signs, all the things. It was when we were moving, actually, from link to Jefferson, I'm like, I'm not going to pay for it. I got to get new signs anyway. Exactly. And Danielle says, yep, that's great. Good decision. It worked out great. So it was, honestly, it was a rough year. It wasn't well timed, um, with the new car sales market was, there was no volume in new car sales right then. Yeah. We moved, we changed brands and it was, it was kind of a skinny for a while. Yeah, it was me and it, but in hindsight it was really good. Um, you know, I call the term, I call it revenue development, like the whole function of generating leads in business. Yeah. I hadn't thought about it for a long time. So we rebuilt our entire process, everything from AdWords to the follow up process on the quotes that we sent out. And yeah, we are. Doing much better right now because of having now the brand's kind of reestablished, right? And we have all of these processes in place. We have great people right now. We have really good people. I wrote a blog in February of 2020, um, bemoaning the fact in some ways that we hadn't had a recession in so long. And, uh, so the, the title of the blog was trimming the fat to find what businesses really love, profit, you know, because we kind of, Um, got bloated as an economy for a long time and then, you know, COVID didn't really help. Yes, did you say February 2020? Yeah, yeah. Got it. Right before. I was like, we need a recession. Okay. Granted. That's hilarious. So it's your fault. Yeah. Government imposed recession. Right, yeah. Um. But it also followed quickly, like within 45 days it was like, Here's 400, 000 of PPP! You want it? You know? And all this just fluff and debit cards arriving by mail and stuff. So that doesn't lead to trimming the fat. No, in hindsight it was It was bad for, for, um, the, I think the habits of businesses and how they, cause it was okay. We came out of this great time. Now there's all this money to spend. Well, now so many people are struggling with this post COVID change of like you were talking to her earlier, where costs of goods and supplies have gone up and you know, everybody didn't have to adjust for any of that at the time. And so now. You have to, and we're seeing it. I mean, even local with businesses closing and restaurants and stuff. But, um, it's a hundred percent, there's, yeah, it, it kind of changed how, how things worked and, well, I'm looking forward, I'm looking forward Painfully scared of what the, those EIDL loans. Mm-Hmm. like I know so many people that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in balances and they no longer have, have a, a. sustainable business. Yeah. You know, and, and those dollars really just kick the can down the road on making the changes that they needed to do to get sustainable for the most part. And now they got, you know, 300, 000 or 400, 000 of money. It's 30 years fixed at 3. 25, but they still want you to pay it back as it turns out. Wow. So, so I'm going to guess I'm going to say 34%. non collection rate on that EIDL program by the time the dust settles. Wow. That would be my guess. And that's a program we didn't have a lot of experience with. It's not one that we really ever Yeah, yeah, yeah. The PVP helped bridge some stuff and pay some salaries and stuff like that. The intent of it was for, and what we used it for was keeping everybody employed. We, we did our best in the, I mean, when we were shut down and stuff to not have to let anybody go. And, um, if somebody wanted to take the time off, then we let them and stuff, but it was great to not. Yeah. To be able to help support our staff, um, in that time where they really needed it. Yeah, for sure. No, I think that was prudence on a business manager standpoint and I, I did, I took 25 grand of the economic injury disaster loan is what they called it because it was 30 year money at three and a quarter. I'm like, Oh sure. I can put it in a CD, um, and like ultimately it was a, was a working capital cushion that allowed me to not really make good changes. Loco Think Tank has been mostly a barely over breakeven organization for most of his life. And it just kind of allowed me to not try to get fit and healthy. Sure. You know, I didn't have to trim the fat cause I had some extra fat from uncle Sam for 30 years. Um, so Mold removal express let's move on to that company. Yep, super simple So it's a it's a niche mold remediation company that Treats homes Predominantly, we will treat commercial properties, but predominantly homes that are flagged during a real estate transaction for having mold. Most common scenarios is small area under a sink, large area in poorly ventilated attic or crawl space. So, the concept Also just not a, not a full house mitigation, more of like a spot, spot fix. That, um, that's exactly it. So it's, mold isn't an insurable event on its own. It is covered under homeowner's insurance if it's a part of a, you know, flood or something like that. As long as it wasn't your own plumbing. Exactly. Yep. Kind of thing. So we, no insurance, no insurance chasing. We've never done work for an insurance company and probably never will, frankly. Um, this is all John's selling his house, and the inspector flags mold because his attic is poorly ventilated. Is it a problem? Yeah. Is it a big problem? No. Does John need it taken care of and taken care of quickly? Yep. Yeah. And that, that's the whole model. The, the process is very simple. It works. It's just an EPA registered, uh, chemical that kills not only the mold, but the mold in the area. So the house has to be vacant. And future little mold spores. Yeah. Kind of thing. Neutralizes all that. Actually works good for like, um, allergens and stuff like that. We don't do any of that stuff. The, the niche is really properties, uh, in the middle of real estate transactions. We have a growing niche of. John finds mold under a sink and he's freaked out about it. And we'll come in and we tell him he can deal with it himself. In fact, if you read the reviews on it, our sale, our partner talks, half of our potential customers that are doing business, but partly because it is so easy to deal with, but If John's freaked out about it, we can come and kill the spot of mold and tell him it's gone, and it is gone. 300 or 500, 800, depending on the situation. If it's a whole attic or crawlspace, it's 3, 000 basically. Um, but it can be done literally tomorrow. Wow, interesting. Yeah, that's it. So we own 60 percent of that company. 40 percent of it, um, is owned by the operators. They brought us the idea 11 years ago. Um, and they just needed some capital and some back end support and it could be a real business. Running a business is hard. We know how to run a business. They know how to operate that side. So it was a good partnership from that front. They had, um, um, built it actually large and very quickly and flamed out very quickly. Gotcha. And they said, Hey, we know this is an idea. Look at these. Right. We got all these customers. We didn't make any money on them. Yep. And we don't know how to insure it. We don't know how to, you know, organize it, set it up, all those kinds of things. So we did invest the capital, but it was a shockingly low amount of capital. Yeah. Didn't take a lot of infrastructure. No. And what's, uh, what's your role with, with mold removal, Danielle? Yeah, I'm in 100 percent accounting again. Just strictly background. Yeah, I do all of HR or anything in that space for you? No, that one, I mean, all we have on that one, we've got a couple subcontractors and then, um, me and one of the other are both employees. So we've got, you know, when it comes to all that payroll side of things, but, um, from the HR standpoint, it's nothing like the flower shops where you've got a hundred employees. Right, right. Um, so yeah, so it's And you're hiring, you're hiring. Three people a month just to stay at a hundred employees. So a lot of that is, um, I just, a lot more invoicing, making sure everybody's staying on track, watching the money being, you know, more of a CFO and watching that higher end stuff on that one. So. Even supply costs and different things like that. Yeah, just, uh, you know, if we're going to be doing a big expense, getting it approved and looking through all of that and seeing where is the best way to do it and how. And, um, you know, our partners with that are so good about it. But yeah, I kind of take a higher end standpoint on that one. And do a little bit more of what I do enjoy, which is accounting. It's stupid simple, Kurt. It's the simplest business on the planet. I mean, I say that in jest, but it really is very, very simple. And we've intentionally kept it that way and it's worked well. You serve the same role kind of there where you feed leads is a lot of your role. So you're kind of. CEO, visionary, but also chief marketing officer is what I'm kind of picking up, Tim. Yeah. And, and moving away from, from marketing as a task or as a, yeah. Um, more of a strategy and have somebody else execute. Yep. In fact, we've, we brought in ad agencies at both SG and MRE in the past six months. Um, just, it was one of those realizations of, hey, eight years ago, you were an expert when it comes to AdWords. Today, you're not. Today you can, you should. Eight years ago, you were willing to spend 10 hours a week trying to figure it out. Exactly. And now you're not. Right. So. That Which it has, uh, I've spent for probably the previous seven years, I've spent a total, uh, or an average of three hours a month on that business. Oh, wow. Um, and it's gone fine and profit margin is strong and consistent, but the last six months I've spent, you know, basically. And we're seeing, seeing those results of, of me applying more of a kind of visionary type of, of approach to it. Um, sales are up a hundred percent so far for the first two, two months of this year. So, um, I thought you said you were stepping out a little bit more, but stepping sideways into a different role. Um, what's happened over the past like six to nine months for me in my career is I'm starting to realize that I, I am a more of a visionary. I wasn't 10 years ago. That's shocking news to me. I've been telling you she said something like that. He's an idea man. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and visionary in the sense of like us like traction, um, and so trying to intentionally More of the fluff off of you and Danielle, do you play that role of integrator in some respects or is that somebody else in your organization? Yeah Different people at different businesses maybe yeah So we're real close to bringing on a full time integrator at SG who will just Take care, not take care of, but will be chief responsibility will be to manage all of those day to day integrator type of situations. And the relief and the excitement that that gives me like thinking through what that means is awesome. Um, Danielle, I have a, I guess a story and a compliment for you. Um, You probably know I've been, like, chasing Tim, you know, slowly for Loco Think Tank for years. And maybe he's shared this story with you if I'm redundant and I shouldn't, but I bet he hasn't. And the last time we got together for lunch, um, you know, I'm a slow flirt, like I don't come on strong, right? But, but it's like, you know, and I was like, you know, it seems like you're just not too interested. And his response really was, you know, me and Danielle have been partners and peers. In this whole journey. And I feel like that's just kind of the way it is. We are each other's safe place and place to seek wisdom and feedback and perspective. And I feel like if I was in like a local think tank chapter, then it would like have this imbalance with me and Danielle and whatever. And I I'm, I'm, I'm served well by the relationship that we have. We're super lucky. Something like that. I usually, I usually don't do these types of things. I actually, I. I get so nervous. Oh, my God. Like, you should have seen me walking in the store. I was so nervous. Tim's like, you need to calm down. I just don't do, I get nervous. We should have had some whiskey then. I know, right? I know, it's that I drink more caffeine. So, but, so he's always, I kind of, he does this. He usually does this. He does the talking side of it for both of us usually. And I try and do more, I guess. Yeah. The thinking side and then I'll tell him my opinions. I have no, no problem with that, but No, she's very good at that. Yeah, no, but we're excited. He's always been very honoring of your role and and that to me was You know, even though I'd love to have, I'd rather have another member, honestly, if you guys could sort it out, but, uh, I'm just kidding. We're both very blessed. Yeah. Yeah, I think, um, as, as our careers have developed, you know, me as, as the visionary in the kind of face at the beginning was super important. Yeah. Her role and skills have become, you know, Honestly, more important than what I do it and right well and as you get older and you have littles and stuff You're more risk averse too. So her skill set is more useful Spiro Palmer said it to me a hundred times. He said I I convinced you but I really wanted I thought you could grow it, but I knew she wouldn't let you wreck it Um, let's uh, let's jump back, um, let's jump back just to the before SG days, like 2009 and just set the stage of, of that getting into business zone. And let's just hear about what those prompts were, what that season of life was. 2009, we were in college, we're at CSU. Tim was an entrepreneur, wanted to do, uh, a business. All the things. Yeah, I was working, I was at the bank at that time, I believe. Yeah, we were 19. And I think you were selling cars. Okay. Um, and, uh, he convinced me that we should buy a business. Yeah. So we, we went online, we met, uh, we looked at a ton of different things, had no idea what we wanted to do. Um, found, uh, Sunglow Window Tent. Um, met with Oh my gosh, we met with a couple bankers and then we ended up meeting, um, with the banker who we still bank with today. I love him. I mean, uh, well, he will always have our business. Um. You can say his name. Yeah. Um, Chris Burns. Especially if you're saying nice things like that. Chris Burns, Bank of Colorado. Yeah. Chris has been around for a long time and he gave us a chance, a lot of relationships like that actually. He is amazing. He gave us a chance when we were young and had no experience, um, and to this day, like, so you're literally like a second year accounting student at this time. Well, at this time I wasn't even, gosh, so, okay, so is that stuff? Were you still going to be a psychiatrist at that time? No, I changed that. Um, turns out I don't do great talking to people. I don't understand. I'm not sure that's true. No, I so we were in the school business. Um, I don't even know if we had declared what we wanted within the business yet Because I didn't want it. I had no idea about accounting I was financed at first and then I took my first accounting class and then from that point, I just loved it It came super easy and kind of just went down that path So yeah, we just You started talking to bankers, found a business you wanted to buy, got an SBA loan, put all your no assets to speak of on the line. That's exactly what it was. Title to your car. Yeah. We, there was a couple interesting things that happened. One is, um, I got a car sales job in Albuquerque, New Mexico, literally on my 18th birthday. Okay. And, uh, Um, as an introvert, it was super scary, but as somebody who was willing to work their ass off, it was, it worked out all right. And so our income level shot to a pretty high degree on our own, or to a pretty high level on our own. I had a college buddy that was making like 60K, like working 10 hours a week selling cars and I was like, And our apartment that we were living in at that point was like 400 and something dollars. Oh yeah, we had, I mean, we, that's exactly, we're making 60 to 80, 000 a year and I wasn't working 10 hours a week. I was working 50, but that's how it worked. Um, so crazy time. You were working a ton. We were both in school full time. We both, well, we were both working and we were making our own way. We both, uh, you know, moved up here, what, 2, 000 in our bank accounts each, I think, and kind of just, uh, you know, we were We just moved in together and merged it together. Actually moved in and just kind of stayed. I was supposed to go to the dorms and uh, Were you boyfriend and girlfriend before this? Yeah, we started dating in high school. Um, and so we moved up here. I just uh, kind of never left. I never really got invited to move in. Just kind of invited myself and never really went anywhere. Then, um, I would say like a year into car sales here, somebody put a rich dad, poor dad, like that, that old cliche, but I mean, when you're 18, 19 years old, that, and that does what it's supposed to do. We kind of took that to heart a little bit and, and we struck out on many businesses, but. Honestly, once we found Chris Burns in, in, um, just like the way that he looked at us and the confidence that he instilled in us, um, that's cool. Yeah. Buy an SG was a very small amount of money in hindsight, but it was a lot of money for us. Right. Right. Right. Well, I, you know, I am over the years, I did a lot of startup lending and stuff. things like that. And even just with local think tank development, I, I like to say my special talent is identifying special talent. And Chris has had that same reputation as well. Like you just get a feel, you know, in today's world, bankers don't get to make decisions like that much, not nearly as much as part of why I'm no longer a banker, but, but it's really kind of a neat thing to be able to evaluate. Do these people have The perseverance, the intelligence, the can do, the willingness to do this hard thing. We, um, that's a big part of our story, is the people that surrounded us from a service provider perspective. They're some of the highest performers in, you know, the city in Colorado at this point. And we just, we got a little bit fortunate from that. You know, it takes luck. It just kind of fell into some of those, yeah. So, but yeah, that, that's how we, and we closed in, in. Yeah, 2009, 2010, and it was fun. We had a blast. Well, it sounds like you had a series of events after that, but before we get there, we're going to jump in the time machine and go all the way back to, like, first grade. Okay. Where, Danielle, where were you in first grade? First grade, I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, born and raised. Um, let's see, what school would have been Like in the city? Yeah, in the city, um, Chaparral Elementary, actually. Oh, nice job. Nice job. Roadrunners. Oh, roadrunners. Yeah. Um, and, uh, yeah, so just in Albuquerque. Tell me about, like, your family. Do you have siblings? Yes. Were your folks in business? Yeah, so, um, my mom and dad, um, got married and I have, they both have a child from prior relationships. So I have two half sisters who are just, um, Completely amazing. And then, um, they got pregnant, um, That's you. Well, actually me and my brother. I have a twin brother. Okay. Yeah, so me and my brother were, came into their lives and, uh, And I, so I have, uh, two sisters and a brother, um, nieces, nephews now. And so most of your family is still down there. Most of my family is in Albuquerque. Uh, my oldest sister is in Oregon. Um, and I remember even, oh gosh, the first grade, I actually already had a niece, um, cause my oldest sister is, um, 15 years older than me. Yeah. And so I remember being in like kindergarten and, uh, I would say about my niece or something and people would be like, you don't have a niece. There's no way you do. It's a cousin or something else. And I, I remember just being so confused at that point. Um, but turns out I had a niece and she's amazing. She actually just had her first baby about a month ago and she's just the cutest little girl. Yeah. So I, I have a great family. Um, my dad is an entrepreneur, had a business when I was younger. Okay. Yeah. Um, What kind of business? Am I right? Yeah, so he used to import wood from Mexico into, like, moldings and stuff. Um, and he doesn't do that anymore. He's since retired. Um, but, uh, he was just Yeah, but you got to see that as you were growing up and stuff. Yeah, I got to see that and just how hard he worked and he's just an amazing provider and just, just the best dad in the world. By the way, while I'm thinking about it or remembering it myself, my, uh, My best friend growing up was my dad's youngest brother. Uh, who was 20 years younger, so we were in the same grade. It was my, and it was like a half thing, so it was like uncle cousin thing. Um, but anyway, I digress. Um, Tim, same question. First grade, where are you? Yeah, I was in, I was in the city of Albuquerque also. You were? Okay. We had just moved from Moab, Utah to Albuquerque. Um, we were on one side of Albuquerque and then moved to the side where I predominantly grew up on. And we actually went to the same, Danielle and I went to the same elementary school. Oh, is that right? Fifth grade. Okay. It's the only time we went to the same school. Are you guys the same age? She's a little older than me. I'm nine months older than you. Well, you look far younger for the record. I'll just take that opportunity. I knew you were going to say that the second you asked. What was your scene, uh, your family situation, siblings, and what? What, what had people living in Moab in the first place and moving to Albuquerque? Yeah. Um, had, uh, I have two, uh, elder half siblings, so I was the youngest. Um, um, we, my, my mom and dad were always separated as long as I remember, but, uh, a super positive relationship, like in a way that as I've aged, um, I've come to appreciate so much, like how challenging that is. And they. They were just they nailed it. Oh my god. So the co parenting thing. Yeah, whatever to this day your mom and your stepmom We'll talk on the phone for an hour Yeah, so but that that informed a lot of just how I grew up my my mom was an amazing provider she You grew up mostly with your mom. Uh huh. Almost hundred percent. Yeah, I spent very little time with my dad. He just lived here in Fort Collins. Um, and we lived in Albuquerque till I moved to Fort Collins. I had not spent more than, I don't know, a week. And did most of the kids in Albuquerque, like, for college when they, if they could, or is that, it seems like it would be kind of normal in that realm. I feel like a lot of people in New Mexico end up staying in New Mexico because the state actually, um, the state lottery, tuition's almost free, kind of thing. Yeah, so for college down there, it's mostly covered, so you don't see a whole lot of out of state like the WUI program or something different like that. Well, UNM is an amazing school. It just happens to be in a not very great place. And even in MSU is an amazing STEM tech engineering school. Yeah, yeah. So, but no, um, I, I spent quite a bit of time growing up just cause my dad was here. Right, right. I never even looked anywhere else. I was just, I was always coming to CSU. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I had always, like, dreamed of going to Duke, so I applied to Duke to see if I could get in. But, um, I never, that was the only other school I applied to. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about, uh, tell me about small Danielle. You seem like a straight A student. People try to cheat off of you all the time. Maybe a valedictorian. Valedictorian? Of how big a class? Oh, not very big. What? 68 people or so. It was a small I went to a private Christian school. That's still pretty good, though. Yeah, it was good. Um, no, I had a I Yes, I'm A high achieving, uh I like to do things well. I like to do I'm a perfectionist. to this day. Um, yeah. So yeah, I went to a private Christian school. Me and my brother, um, hope Christian is an amazing school. We're super fortunate to go there. Athlete. Were you? Yeah. So I, I do volleyball. Um, even like last time I had a volleyball game. Um, so that was my big thing in high school. And I mean, I was all the things too. I did like, I was like, debate team, whatever. I don't know. Yeah, um, just as much as all as much as I could do. I just, I've always tried to do my best and be a high achiever. Um, that's just kind of how I'm wired. I would, uh, in high school I was a manager at a pizza restaurant. Actually, we worked together. Um, and that's where we started dating. Um, and so I would leave very often. I'd leave school about half hour early, go to work. And nobody cared because you had straight A's all the time anyway. Yeah, as long as I was doing good. Um. So I'd go to work and I'd be there till about midnight and then on the weekends I would get up at 5 or 6 a. m. go do opening and so it was, it was a busy time. I don't know how you, I mean, I, when you're younger, you just do it. When I think of it now, I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's so much, um, But that's just kind of how my brain functions. That's how I've always kind of gone to on and off gas pedal down or coasting. But yeah, fairly rarely. Not very idle,, I'm guessing you might not have been to the same private school thing? You just found this cute Christian girl at the pizza shop? Um, yeah. So we, our paths crossed a few times growing up between school. I didn't know her in fifth grade, but I knew her twin brother. Oh, sure. Yeah. In fifth grade. And we had some mutual friends in middle school. Oh, wow. Okay. We actually went trick or treating together in like seventh grade. Yes. Randomly. Yep. Yeah. And then, um, yeah, then we started working both very young. You know, it was about as early as you could start working, you know, as a couple months before he turned 16. So we, um, and we worked there till I got the car sales job. So, um, two and a half years together. So yeah, we, we had a whole kind of evolution of, there are pictures of junior prom where we went with the same group of people with different people and then pictures that are senior prom where we are there together, really good friendship for a long time prior to actually dating. Yeah. Yeah. What, uh, like, let me guess, um, You wanted to date, but you were too scared, And it took you a year or so of him warming you up and showing that he's a good guy. Nope. That's not true. No, vice versa. She asked me out. I did ask you out, but we were both in, I mean, we were friends for so long, we were both in relationships and, uh, prior and, uh, just from working together, we had a lot of closing shifts together. So we were just, that friendship just built and, um, And he was in a relationship or I was in a relationship or something and then, uh, then I did finally ask him out when we both were not in a relationship. Well, that's better than when you were not in a relationship and he was in one. Yeah, no, it's timing. I'm not giving you a license for that. Timing just all worked out right before senior year we started dating. Yeah. And were you excited to come to Fort Collins when he announced that? Yeah, so I, I was a little opposite than him. Um, I did apply to a bunch of schools, got into a ton of schools. Um, and then kind of had a decision. I knew I wanted to go out of state. Um, I, since I can remember, I'd always wanted to venture out and try something new. Um, had looked at CSU and it actually wasn't one of my favorite schools. Um, um, of my, I really liked CU and I really liked, um, uh, Arizona just in general. Um, and so when he decided to come out here, um, you know, kind of re evaluated everything and I did end up being that girl that followed. Um, and if my daughter did that to this day, I would absolutely kill her. I mean, we had only been dating for nine months at that point. When I think about, like, The millions of ways that it should have gone wrong and normally would I, I don't recommend it for us. It definitely worked out. Um, and we're so blessed that it did, um, you know, if you're sailing in Providence, crazy. We were. We were at a different level of maturity between, um, the amount of time that we worked, not just worked together, but we, we were working professionals, right? At that point, we had some things going on in our family that it caused us to be to mature, both independently and different. They're not the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Um, We were much more capable of, or in much closer to adulthood than your typical 18 year old. That doesn't surprise me. And we didn't really know that, you know, at that time, but, but, um, some people around us did and kind of allowed it to happen. And yes, we bought a house nine months after we got here. We're married like about a year after that. You had a rich dad, poor dad. You bought a business in the second year of school. I think we even combined our finances when we were delivering. We had barely moved in together. I, all these things that You're like, here, take all my money. I don't like to do stuff with my money. We just, it's just kind of always been easy. I think we just always had that trust and it Yeah. Kind of just bloomed from there. Well, and it probably was there most of the way there one month in instead of nine months in is my suspicion or two. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, there was a big event that happened really early on in our relationship. We were, um, going to go to a movie with some friends and there was a line of three cars. Uh, I was in the back, Danielle was driving her, her truck in the center and then some friends in front and a drunk driver in a 70s, um, Suburban crossed the line and almost hit our friends who were able to get off the road and then hit Danielle head on. Oh my. When what we were a month into our senior year of high school, and I witnessed it. It was, it changed the trajectory of our relationship, just of our lives, really, in a lot of ways it changed the trajectory of our lives. A couple things. One, Tim pulled me out of the car, which was just, I mean, um, yeah, I still have back pain to this day to deal with it, and, uh, but, um, but two, um, Tim was actually going to break up with me that night. Oh god. I wasn't going to tell that part of the story but that's okay. I was still kind of into somebody else and so he was going to end it and so uh, God intervened a little bit by Yeah and then he pulls you out of the car and you're like, my hero, I actually, I hate that loser. So it, it kind of, it kind of all worked out but it did change things a lot, um, I kind of re I mean, not re established, but Hardcore established a lot of trust and, and love there and so, uh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Change a lot of things. Um, I want to come back to college because we're getting close to that point we jumped off, but I'm going to call a quick break and then we'll be back. So, um, we kind of got back to where we jumped off from, uh, your journey there. So you'd acquired this window business, at least in part, because you showed a bunch of income from being a damn good car salesman, all that stuff. And then was, what was the next? Kind of entrepreneurial thing or was that after college then? No, we were can we were continuing on that path, okay? It's there was a life event that happened kind of sequentially to our acquisition of Sunglow and I was Courted by a fortune 500 agricultural company. Okay To be in sales management for them, which was a bachelor position. I still have like I have two, two and a half years left in my bachelors, but, um, I tried to sell the, the, who ended up being a mentor of mine, uh, the car, it was unsuccessfully bought it from somebody else. Yeah. But, but he was like, man, I want to hire this guy to go sell farm equipment for me. Uh, yep. Corn seed, soybean seed, alpha seed, all that Ginger Graham started in that same kind of work. Oh, really? She sold chemicals. She was an ag economics person. Uh, we, we would have been kind of side by side then in that space. But, um, so, That the the particular entity went on a hiring freeze during my second portion of my interview process Okay And so right about that time is when we started working on SG deal and they both ended up happening at the same time We closed on Sunglow in like one month later Which I've been waiting for nine months for this offer letter to come in The offer letter came in, salary, completely flexible schedule, brand new truck, drive as much as you want, good insurance, like all the like, you cannot not take that job. So I left the bank, and I, uh, started doing stuff for Sunglow, and he took that job. Maybe not even finished your degree, but you were working at a bank, doing, tailoring new accounts, kind of stuff like that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We would between sophomore and junior year in college at this time. So you were getting 20 bucks an hour or 18 or something like that. And Tim was being offered a lot more. And so it made a lot more sense. I mean, we even sat down and talked about it. Cause he's the entrepreneur in our, like, he's got the entrepreneurial heart. And so I remember sitting down and we were talking about it, but it just made so much more sense for him to take this other great opportunity. And for me to, uh, take to do the business and, um, Well, I bet. Probably you're a better numbers girl because of that experience doing the whole thing. I would say so. I think we both are better for those experiences. My time in the corporate world where I got elite level training, you know, I, I was put in very uncomfortable and challenging situations, like all of these things and Danielle's time has been the sole operator of this business. We almost like. Flipped roll planned rolls for a while with the concept of flipping back at some point. So we bought, we were looking at gas stations and dry cleaners all across the country, just not the country, the state to, um, be the next target for our acquisition. We didn't have, I mean, we had money for college kids, but there's no like slush fund back here. Well, and nobody like, it was just like, yes, G was that easy or something that was part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, cause people look at the idea of starting a business or buying a business and a lot of people are just super intimidated. What? Business is hard. Um, I mean, it is intimidating and it kind of should be. There's a lot of, especially in Colorado, there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through and there's a lot of regulatory things that have to happen. So you do want to go into it cautiously, but it's not, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just means you need to educate yourself as much as possible. Yeah, fair. Um, and for us, when we were looking for another business, We were busy, but we were looking for something that was maybe gonna require a lot less time. So we were looking at things like a gas station or like a coin operated laundromat where we wouldn't have to necessarily put in a ton of time. Pretty more mailbox money ish kind of businesses. And we had done Theoretically. Theoretically, yeah. We had just started dabbling in rentals. Um, I think we had our first rental at that point. Um, so we were just looking for more ways to increase our wealth overall for, you know, Yeah. Long term. Felt like you could grow a business faster than you could grow a real estate value ultimately. Yeah. 100%. Or might not do both really. Right. So at that point, I mean, like Tim said, we had money for being in college, but realistically now that I look at it, we didn't have anything. Not to invest. No. Not to acquire assets. No. Um, and so. Well, today's debt is tomorrow's equity. Right. Which we kind of took that approach. That's what we did a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. To answer the question, I think, um, because of our, um, similar overall outlooks, but different ways of getting, um, operating a business came more naturally to us together as a group or as a team, as opposed to how a lot of people find it individually or from different. Yeah, yeah. different walks of life. We were also in the middle of business school at that time, which, um, as you get to that point of business school, a lot of people You can end up in what seems like abstract concepts, and we were living it. Yeah, you're applying these concepts every day. Well, so we would be taking classes. We would opt to take a class that we knew would help us. So if we had an option of four different classes, we would choose one and be like, Well, this actually pertains to us. So it made it a lot easier. Easier. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, and that's exactly what it was, but to, uh, to buy mailbox money or quote unquote mailbox money, you have to have assets, right? We did not have that assets to do that. So we, an operating business that you have to turn the cranks Manageable to acquire exactly for sure. Especially with SBA opportunities out there. Um, we So we got pitched a flower shop a few times said no a couple of times. Okay Um, it took a big price reduction even way back when uh huh. Yeah. Oh, how did Sparrow stumble upon you. It wasn't Sparrow. Oh, a flower shop. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. One flower shop that was for sale. It's actually the love one location and We were like no work. Yeah, we have no desire to And then we ended up the numbers So we were re evaluated and they gave us an option to buy the real estate, um, which we could not do at the time of purchase, but they had like, it was like two or three years, uh, left on the lease. And they said, Hey, you get, you'll have an option at lease turn. We exercise that option end up being a fantastic deal, but that was kind of the tipping point. Yeah. Got into the flower business. Um, and was this the flower shop that later got acquired by Palmer's or something to make the Loveland location or no? Yeah. We merged with Palmer's bringing that in the Boulder location, which again is no longer part of Palmer flowers, but we brought those two and did a merger. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yep. It was a merger and a leverage buyout is a reasonably complex transaction that we did at that time. But, um, there, there was then to this point in our lives where it's been pretty analytical and systematic and that's not what happened the first month of the flower shop. We fell in love with it. Like we loved the people, many of whom still work for us. Um, we, or up until last Friday, I guess, but what was your brand? I Forever Flowers. Yeah, really? It, it, that, oh, it's, that location, it's that weird corner, that, like, European corner where you cross traffic. And the owner that we bought it from was, they were actually a Flowerama franchise. Oh. And they sued Flowerama about two years before we acquired it to get out of the franchise agreement. Oh, interesting. Because they were aware of the eminent domain, uh, Right. Um, I'd heard about that opportunity or, or likely eminent domain. They did not disclose it. And so they'd remove themselves from Flowerama did, did a reasonably poor job of rebranding, but they had a great corner and a great, uh, a lot of traffic visibility, reputation, long, a lot of long time established customers, all that, so, and probably not very good marketing skills in the digital economy. Yep. It in, but. At the same time, what we didn't know is how complicated the supply chain was. It actually took a couple more supply chain classes as it turns out. So that was a trial by fire. We also didn't know what it was that not ever. We were pretty tech savvy. We thought every business was tech savvy. Technically adept at that point. She was operating off carbon copy tickets. So for Valentine's day, she, we would write out these carbon copy, three layer tickets. We do 300 deliveries in like seven hours. Right. So there was 900 water soluble pieces of paper. Oh, I think 9 PM and it was, it was brutal. He said, no idea what we're doing. Did you guys, um, Have you, had you started a family then? Cause you got a couple, couple of littles. So this would have been, um, 2012. Yeah, so at that point Tim was We switched we were in the middle of switching. I had just gotten my master's from CSU Okay, and I was in process of setting for my CPA exam Got that done that summer. I think the same summer that we acquired the flower shop You left your agricultural sales. Yeah, which I loved it was a They, they took such good care of me. Um, and, and they were just, it's a great organization. But, um, no hard feelings, but I gotta be me. Well, it was, it was the, the, I saw very quickly the, the typical corporate structure issues. I w I had been through two reorgs, one of which I'd seen somebody who was way better than me at my job, get, you know, demoted three layers, just. Out of politics, basically, and and then I had some good mentors that said, Hey, I remember this very, very clearly. He said, You can stay in Fort Collins and build your own little empire in Fort Collins and be the man there. Or you can move all over the world and do all these big things with this company. I'm like, I'd rather be poor in Fort Collins than rich all over the world. And he, he wasn't saying that he was saying you have to make a choice here. And that choice was super clear. Like that, that was the moment. That's like, Nope, we just, it's, it's time to switch gears and become a full time entrepreneur. My, uh, my father in law, uh, really grew up with John Deere corporation. So, and he's, like, literally the oldest employee of John Deere right now, uh, he's, he retired at 55 years ago, then he worked for Frontier Equipment, but, but, my wife, Jill, grew up to, like, she was born in Yuma, Arizona, they lived in Idaho just before that, then they lived in Portland area, then they lived in, you know, Iowa and then Minneapolis area. And you know, it's interesting. Yeah, there's, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It was very clear. We didn't have a family. We were married. We'd been married a few years at that point. We were planning to have a family, but, um, I, if I remember the conversation correctly, Danielle said, I've moved 500 miles from my family for you. I'm not moving any further. And not to say that I really wanted to, we were unpacking, you know, what that meant for our family. Yeah, that was just her way of saying, I don't really want to like live five years at a time all over the world. Well, and I am so, I am super close with my family. So having Albuquerque just a half day away or a couple hour plane ride by the time you get there, like that to me is the farthest I ever want to be. I don't want to be farther than that from them. I love the idea of being able to like, if there's an emergency, I can get there as Yeah. You know, pretty quick. Um, they mean everything to me. So that was, we were just, it wasn't happening. You know, it's, it's easy in these business discussions to get caught up in what's the right, most efficient next move. At the end of the day, we talk about the success we've had in our partnership, both personally and business wise, that takes mutual fulfillment and it takes giving a take a hundred percent of the time to, to get there. And that's probably been the secret sauce to our success. Professionally and personally, as there's been this effortless, mostly effortless, give and take where there's been times where I've kind of led the charge, there's been times where her and what she wants is led to charge and it does that, that kind of back continuous conversation. Say communication. Yeah. And I mean, it's hard to work with your spouse, but also in so many ways, it's almost so easier because we've always been super open and honest about communicating things, especially when it comes to like finances, um, and that. And so just some of that, being able to communicate that within the business, it never really was a challenge. difficult thing for us because we are already doing that within our relationship and our marriage. And so I, I mean, you have different fights for sure, where I don't agree with something he did want within the business or how he spoke to somebody or vice versa. He doesn't agree with how I did something. And so you just have to be able to work through that. He's a lot better about not bringing it home than I am. Um, but he's also really good about trying to pull me out of that. I'm thinking about sometimes there's just A difference of opinion, like when the cat's on the table when I'm eating dinner, the cat gets smacked off the table. Jill thinks that's never okay. Yeah. It's just a dumb cat. She doesn't know any better. Well, she'll learn if she gets smacked enough times. I would say it's just a difference of values in some ways. Especially after the past three months where we've had to make some, have some really hard to say. Discussions, make some really hard decisions. There are times there's just reasonable people can disagree. And that's the same. Yeah. Especially when you work with your spouse, you, you run into that. But. Wow. What a concept in today's world. That reasonable people can disagree. Disagree. Yeah, I, yes. It's one of the bigger challenges in the, in the times we live in. Yeah, yeah. Any type of communication right now. Part of the foundation of my podcast is. That it's okay to disagree and talk about hard topics. And that's why you have to be able to, you have to be able to talk about it and, and like I said, I am not the best about that. I tend to shut down and I need to have a day or so to come back to it. Um, and we've kind of worked through that at this point where we can do that, but you have to be able to listen to both sides, whether you like it or not. And in the meantime, Tim's like a confront the dragon guy. Oh my god. He's like, let's finish this. I will tell you the hardest part, literally the hardest part of being married is that he wants to talk about it right then. And I'm like, I cannot talk about this right now. We need to do this at a different time. I need, I need a moment. My wife is very much the same and she's that kind of organized personality and she'll just be like, I mean like, well what? And she's like, give me a minute. Like, it takes me more than one second to respond. Like I get that you could respond to every situation in like a half a millisecond, but that's not the way my brain works. I'm making checklists in my brain that I need to be able to go through, how I'm going to speak about it. Like if he's going to respond to this, how am I going to respond this other way? So, yeah, there's no planning in my world, what I'm going to say next. It just happens. Yeah. A hundred percent. So I don't know what it's like guys. It's hard. So that, that became a really clear, so, but it worked really beautifully for us. So we had this one flower shop, we had the window tuning business, right about that same time, we were presented with the concept of mold removal express, um, which it was too good to say no to. And it's the best investment we ever made. Thank God we did it. Um, but so we did that. And then, This flower, this other flower shop. We needed just a little bit more to confidently replace my income. Right, right. Um, because they were all tiny, right? All these things are little bitty things at this point. And Danielle was wrapping up headed towards a career, but wasn't there yet. Okay. So, um, we'd identified this one flower shop in Boulder that we really, really liked. Um, and at not the most opportune time it came for sale, but we bought it. Pulled it together, did the deal, and Chris, Chris Burns stretched for you a little bit. Always. That's amazing. Um, and, um, that, that pulled me out of, of corporate, um, and really gave me this full time entrepreneurial view of our life, um, and that allowed me to go into corporate. Mm hmm. And where did you go? Um, I was at an accounting firm, um, for a while, um, Can you talk about them? Uh, yeah, uh, it was, uh, Keiko Isom. They're awesome. So he was coming out of agriculture and I went into actual agricultural accounting. Um, where we were, uh, uh, you know, tax accounting. Um, I loved it. Uh, it's such a fun industry. Really? Um, I do. Oh my god, you're so one. To this day, if somebody asks me a tax question and I just light up, um, I'm such a nerd. And Keiko Isom was a part of that. I mean, they're a great organization. They're great trainers and all that. At the time it was Which you got that same kind of dose of, hey, I'm a nerd. I'm getting all these skills poured into me that it would be hard to get otherwise. Well, it helped so much when I was working with my clients because I could talk to them as a business owner to business owner and I could understand the hardships they were going through and I could answer a lot of their other questions. Whereas some people, I mean, It's just some small stuff, even just how you have to register within your, uh, county and register your business. Different licenses and things like that. Those were things that most people didn't have any Totally. They've never done, and so I could go into that and do it confidently and guide them the right way. Um Loved that job to this day. That is one it's been, they were so good, their work life balance. They really focused on it even. And we were there when we had our little one. Um, they let me go part time. They even gave me like an extra month on my maternity leave. They were just amazing. Yeah. They're super great. Well, they don't find that many high achieving task oriented people like you that actually have common sense and street skills. Yeah, it was, it was really fun organization organization to work for. It's fun to unpack this particular part of our life because, you know, we worked. We decided we didn't really want to be in the corporate world. But it's so interesting that we worked for these amazing industries, uh, entities that took such great care of us and were mentors and lifelong friends and all those kinds of things. But it just wasn't for us. Yeah. Um, And so you've got this boulder flower shop secured, and this is what, circa 2015, 17, 14, 15, uh, 14, 14, yeah, early 14, yeah, late 13, early 14, 13, and then so we, um, we were kind of good. we got our three, we want to be in three industries. We got our three industries. I got two flower shops. They're a bit to deal with. Um, window tinning businesses starting to grow. Um, How'd you open the Fort Collins location? No, still only commercial residential at that time. Um, so we were kind of doing our thing. We had a, Four rentals, three, four rentals at that time. Um, and then Spiro Palmer found us. He was actually, if you, he didn't tell me this till years later, he was sizing us up for competition. He was going to open a shop literally next door to us. Okay. So he had Michelle Adams, who Yeah, come do some secret shopping and stuff. No, she called me up and said, Hey, we want to have coffee. Oh. Great. Um, And I didn't know really who he was at that time. I'm still, you know, I'm 25. Right. 26. Yeah, at that point, yeah. Yeah, I remember being, I mean, no offense, but kind of shocked. I'm like, Sphero's selling to this kind of punk kid, rookie ish, but he's a talent spotter too. He, um, so halfway through the coffee, he switched, and he said, Hey, you guys are actually the people that I Pretty cool. Yeah, that I I've been looking for somebody like you. That's exactly what it was. So, he came after What a compliment, and what a intuition. Like, that's Should be pulled out, like, Spiro's sense of, of actually shifting mid conversation from, Am I gonna push this guy off this corner or buy him? Yep. Oh, wait, no, I might. Want to sell to him. Yeah He's um, yeah, he's an amazing guy in that and thinking back back to that conversation specifically he he was so intuitive in that and not to say that we were the perfect people for it, but We had the skills that he needed to allow His people to continue doing what they do and we could operate the basically the rest of it And we loved the employee ownership. You still loved flowers Probably you still do So, um, he courted us pretty aggressively after that point. So that would have been like April of, of 2014. We said no, a couple of times, right. Um, life was still moving. Working in your dream job still second maternity leave coming up soon. Yeah, I was, I was, I remember being in meetings with him where he's trying to initially try and buy our shops first and then offering us to take over his shops. And. Uh, at the time, I remember my little one kicking inside my stomach and I always kick my ribs. So I had my hand on there and he was always so concerned. He's always like, are you okay? Are you okay? Big old belly in there. So, um, we, we held him off honestly for about six months and, uh, come about September he made a, uh, A final offer that we could probably sell it better at by that time, it did. And just the way we were organizing things, it was complicated for sure. Um, even in retrospect, it was complicated because he had already made some of his employees, owners also. So we had to sell them not only on that deal on the right way to do it, but on the punk kid. And his pregnant wife on running the business, they'd only ever worked for him quite literally for 20 years and more. And for some cases, exactly. Yeah, just looking through, we have some people who've been there since 1976. Oh my, I mean, yes, enough said. Yeah. So that, um, we, we ended up. Saying yes and getting it figured out and it closed on January 1 of 2015. Okay. That was kind of the culmination of that acquisition phase of our life. We were just, we've been going, going, going, going, going up until that point. Mm hmm. Fair enough. And this is the first time. You've really sold much. Or a big thing. Yeah. Very, very little. We sold one flower shop in 2019 that didn't fit the portfolio. Yeah. But outside of that, yeah, this, this was a, was a unique experience. So I think I've heard, um, kind of your, your, your business superpowers to some extent is that you fill in each other's gaps very well. Uh, you have a kind of a shared value system and vision for your own future as a, as a couple, but, uh, different strengths toward getting there. Uh, what's the biggest chink in your armor? Didn't expect that question, did you? Didn't expect that. Biggest chink in our armor, um, I, I think that, um, we have really focused on doing it together. Like, we have not, we have amazing relationships all across Fort Collins, and we, we have really done everything as a two person team, for the most part. We have some, I call them operating partners, and there's some people that That are our partners that run the business, but then it won't have any say into how we really manage things at the end of the day. And we probably could have taken, you know, instead of two plus two equaling. five, maybe seven or eight based on four might be 16 exactly based on some of the phenomenal relationships that we've had. Um, it's, it's the other thing that, that, um, some people might say it was a chink, um, depends on the day for me, but is we've been very methodical with how we've done this. It doesn't sound like it, but we could have gone faster, bigger, you know, all those kinds of things. But the, um, Danielle may not call that a chink in the armor, but she, but That's the way I designed it, she says. Yeah, which No, but that's fair. We could have gotten bigger, you know, but, but I don't know that in retrospect I have any regret relative to that. Right, right, right. No, you, there's always bigger, right? And it comes with risk, it comes with lifestyle choices, all that. Right. So, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think we've, one of the reasons we haven't gone bigger is, well, we had our little one in 2014, and wanting to make sure that we were both available for her and the time commitment to her, you know, if we would have stayed working how we did prior, then absolutely, but I, one of us always picks her up from school, uh, well, sorry, except for like today, but one of us generally picks her up from school and she's the priority for us. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, talk to me just a little bit more about this. sale transaction of Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood, like, were you on the same page when that started to get real? Who was more enthusiastic or less? Is there, was there a compromise in that conversation? No, we were simpatico. There was no, um, disagreement there. It came on very quickly. It came on from a conversation, kind of some fact finding I did of, or the, the, um, The group that ended up buying us had bought a large group in Albuquerque last year, and we were, I was doing some fact finding on some possible operational improvements. And so we were down there Thanksgiving of 2023, and I did some, just some visiting secret shopping of them. And that spurred a conversation with, with Kevin McCarthy. Um, and it, It went so fast. It went from 12 5, uh, so December 5th was the initial conversation. And really, we had some complexities at the very end that pushed it from 2 1 to 3 1. Wow. Otherwise it could have been like a 50 day close. Exactly. Oh my goodness. Well that must be, that's a testimony to your books, Danielle, for one thing. That is true. The books that was not, there was no questions for those. Those are clean. Yeah. Um, in a testimony to our team as a whole and to Spiro, how he set the business up, the business is clean, right? There's no, it had to be transparent for all these employee owners and things like that. When they came out to visit to see if it was something they want to do. I mean, I cannot talk about how amazing our people are more, but we preach that to them from day one conversation. For me, my people are probably what's most similar to me within this industry. And we've been going and pushing that. And then they came in and I remember the day they were leaving. They were like, yeah, you guys are right. A lot of times we come in and people say how, um, amazing that staff is, But yours actually really is just phenomenal. Every single one of them is just so talented in their own ways. Um, so that definitely helped. Well, I think it, um, this isn't about the transaction, but I think the employee ownership component of the business kept us really culturally focused before company culture employees first kind of exactly then customers. And then the owners kind of, exactly. So, um, it, that wasn't, that's an overnight change, right? And it doesn't improve the business overnight, but over time it improves the talent of the people that you have on the team. Yeah. Well, and it totally increases their willingness to look at it as a whole operation and look, really examine their role. Yeah. Yep. So we, I mean, these last three months have just been wild. I, everything from like hosting this, you know, CEO and president of, of the very large florist and they're 30 times bigger than you or something, or 50, 50, they're huge. We were a big acquisition for them, but yeah. But only because flower shops just don't get that big very often. Exactly. So, uh, from hosting them, wining and dining them, touring them around to, gosh, I spent so much time with attorneys over the past, like, six weeks and in negotiating, negotiating the details of what ended up being very complicated is we have five landlords. So trying to get, they have a Harvard attorney on staff. Right. And they have a checklist of things that they need to see in their leases. And we have everything from very sophisticated landlords to mom and pop. Carbon copy, fiber, three layer carbon sheet. So, I ended up in the middle kind of brokering all of this conversation back and forth, which, um, Everyone came on board with it. It took a little bit longer. It takes time because you want to do it by everybody. Yeah, that wasn't long anyway, you know. Yeah, it felt long. Everybody must have felt it was a win win, win win kind of situation in the end. I think we got there. Yeah, I really do. I think, um, you know, I think it was, it was a big thing for Spiro. Spiro? Yeah, I'm sure. It's hard. It's emotional. Yeah. It was emotional for him. Yeah. It's emotional for everyone. I mean, once you're in this flower industry, like you just, it, it's hard to explain how you can love working 70 hours during Valentine's Day week, but being able to deliver these flowers and having somebody who's just so excited or you deliver to somebody who's grieving and they're able to like really grieve through those flowers or by sending them, like, it's just a completely different emotion that, uh, that you just don't ever deal with in any other industry. Do you want another hard question? Sure. Um, now that Palmers and Paul Woods is not a local shop, if somebody's insistent on a local Flower shop. Who do you recommend? I still go Palmer and Poe. It's so local and people working there. Yeah, that's fair. It's still family owned. I mean, I'll answer the question. Yeah, I'll answer the question. Um, I think the strongest flower shop in Fort Collins is Lace and Lilies. They actually have a national footprint when it comes to the quality of their event, whether it's a supply chain and different things. Okay. But I do truly feel like if you're wanting to do local, we've got Local employees, we buy local, we support Fort Collins locally. So keep going to Palmer Flowers and Paul Wood. So, my wife and I met, uh, Cece, whatever her name is, I forget, but Cece's flower shop on Valentine's Day at New Belgium with her brand new completed truck. It was her first day out. Nice. And so that's, I'm kind of partial, I've bought my flowers mostly from her lately because I, Palmer's didn't need my business the last few years. She definitely did. And she's making it. I think she's turning the corner. I, I, um. I met with her very early on and I met with her a few times over the years. Talent spotter, right? Yeah, she, she, I love that she came from the industry from a marketing and development background as opposed to a designer. We as florists could see it early on. Fair. But, That's not where it's at now. She's built her skillset and probably even hired some designers and things. I think any time you can support an actual florist versus going to the grocery store, you're going to get much higher quality arrangements and product and you are truly supporting somebody local then. I'm embarrassed to say that half my flowers are grocery store flowers. That's fine. Your wife probably still loves them. She does. It's only like 11, you know, and whatever. And it's the thought that counts, right? Yep. And that's one of the hard things for industry is it's hard to compete with that, um, Yeah. Well, that's part of why I had Matt from Wilbur's on recently because the, the wine and beer in grocery stores instead of liquor stores and, you know, it, I'm embarrassed every time I grab a 12 pack of beer at the grocery store or a bottle of wine at the checkout line. The price and convenience are important. Yeah, you know, and so it goes. I, and Kroger's good, and that's one of the problems in the flower business is Safeway and like these other kind of, Not as high level operators. Yeah, that's fine. They don't really I don't believe they put a big scary business but Kroger ain't that Kroger's very interesting very good even on the floral side of things and they they tend to know what they're doing When it comes to those that they're delivering in for Collins via DoorDash at this point. Oh, really? Now It's, it's probably similar to what, what Matt has to say. The nuance quality, it's not even close. The quality is completely different. Nobody actually knows anything and whatever else, but yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was a wild transaction. It was a wild three months. I'm sure, man. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Your first kind of significant exit of your career. I mean, you've been buying things and you had one departure or whatever, I'm sure. But. This is a big deal. Now we just gotta figure out what we want to do when we grow up. What do you want to do next? Uh, is there a next? I mean, Tim told me one time that you actually just want to go back into corporate accounting someday, Danielle. Is that still true? I think I do. Um. I, I don't know. I don't want to do HR. I've, I got pulled into HR a lot in, uh, I know that's something you definitely You love your people, but you don't love HR. I love my people too much to be able to do HR. Right. Realistically. Yeah, yeah. Um, I get pulled into too tight with them. Yeah. Um, yeah, so I think I want to go back to corporate accounting. I got a I gotta figure out where and start applying for some positions here. Well, and Tim's gonna want to buy another business here, and then he's gonna be like, Hey, I need you over here, maybe. Yes, he was pitching me one the other day. Actually, it was good, though. Can you be satisfied where you're at now and just take your time finding the next position? We're definitely going to take our time, um, I am going to, um, really step back and look at what my, where my skills and where my passions lie and try and organize, cause we have the opportunity to grow, especially mold removal express. So if we decide to, yeah, you could put that in other marketplaces and stuff and create a Panda express type brand, right? There is, there's been a very strong push from some high level, uh, franchise, uh, Consultants who Mark Torres from Chiba Hut has pushed you some people. And so he's like, dude, you're dumb. If you don't scale this. So we, and we still need to do due diligence there, but we're going to, we are going to take a step back and say, okay, where are our talents best applied? And both for the effectiveness of the business, our people, as well as ourselves. And our life and what brings us the most joy. We're in this unique position where we do need, well, need to work, but we can take this time to decide what fits best for our life. Well, I, I, I assume between S, S and G and mold removal, if you batten down the hatches and, you know, you got a chunk. Cash either coming or whatever like you don't have to be fast about it. No, no, we I mean Yeah, we there's there's plenty of fat there to for us to take our time. And um, As we talked about you guys are pretty young yet. Why don't you knock on a couple kids more? You're really smart We're a one and done We have just the perfect daughter compromise here We uh No, we got it right the first time. That's true. And we were, have been super intentional. Like I worked at 60, 70 hours, at least a week until the day she was born. And then I took three months off and then I only worked, uh, like two and a half days a week for the next four years. And like, that was amazing space for that. Yeah. We made space for that at the end of that. I was ready to work. I was ready to get back to business. Right, right. And that's fair. Um, so yeah, it, it fits really well for us. We, um, and, but it's not super clear this this Yeah. Step wasn't a step towards perfect intentionality. It was a step towards, Hey, we feel this draw. Yeah. Pulling us this direction. It's, it's time to do this. Yeah. Right. Well, and feels right. Is a lot of the world, really, for sure. So, um, I'm going to call a real short break. We'll jump into our closing segment from there. Yeah, great. And we're back. Um, well, it's been a really interesting journey to hear. I mean, I just frankly don't meet that many entrepreneurs that started so young and have been so together. things. Um, we're going to jump into our ladder segments. We always talk about faith, family and politics. Um, Danielle, you've already mentioned you grew up in a Christian school and things. Uh, is that true? still the same? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Um, grew up, I actually grew up Catholic. Um, uh, you know, my family is Hispanic from, uh, New Mexico. And so went to church every Sunday. Um, uh, when we came out and then my, my, my. Started in a Christian school in middle school, um, but I'm not Catholic, not Catholic. Yeah. Um, and Think that's the biggest mistake of her life My mom wishes I should be able to gone to a Catholic school Differences in opinion really at the end of the day. Our core is the same though. Sure Jesus is cool And we let that play out Um, well, and I have to think there was Catholic private schools as well, or just not as good at ones? We'll want more money. Oh, okay. Interesting. So, um, Albuquerque does not have a great school system like out here. And so, uh, Tim ended up going to the public school, um, but at that point I went to the private school. Right. My parents made a lot of sacrifices to make sure my brother and I could do that. Um, and in reality I probably would have been fine at a public school, but it was really good for my brother. If you're driven enough, it's better. Especially. But really good for my brother to be at a private school. I think he would have gotten pulled into a lot of bad things and super glad that, uh, we had the opportunity to guide him in a different direction. He is an amazing brother, twin brother, uh, father. I have two, uh, nephews, um, with him and they're just part of the joys of my life. I love them so much. Did you guys have a moment, like, where you're like, Oh, yeah. I like this kind of Christian, more or less Catholic thing, or like, is that a transition after you moved away kind of thing? I don't think it was a moment for me. I think I was just at this, at this school at the time, and I was learning a little bit different than what I had learned up until that point, and it just made sense for me, and, um, And so it's kind of just been ingrained that way. Um, and so, yeah, so I don't think there was a moment. I think it was just kind of a gradual, gradual move. Tim, same question. Like, what was that in your family background? Yeah. Um, So, again, my mom and dad were separated from very young. Um, my dad grew up, uh, very heavily Catholic. Okay. Um, uh, grandpa, his dad was, was, Yeah. My grandpa's grandpa, whatever. Oh, sainted? Yeah, by the, by the, um, I forget the order, uh, the Dominican order. Oh, like that's like the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the Freemasons or something, right? Not just a Mason, but the Freemason. Yes. Yes. He was, my grandpa was very high achieving in, in all ways. But, um, so my dad, uh, went, uh, every day to St. Joe's here in Fort Collins. And absolutely has the awful taste in his mouth about that type of organized religion. He's a believer in all those kinds of things, but, but that was his obligation. Opportunity. Exactly. So he kind of maybe passed along that not disdain, but questioning of Catholicism. Yeah. Um, Um, where I grew up was, uh, pretty light. We believe in God. Um, don't talk much more about it. Yeah, yeah. We don't really know what that means all that much. Um, that kind of stuff. Like your neighborhood or Albuquerque in general is kind of that way? No, my household. Your household. Fair. Yeah, yeah. Not in a negative way. It just wasn't a significant part. Yeah, yeah. Right? Um, so. That's probably similar to my own journey actually. was a motorcycle mechanic that farmed Saturday evenings and weekends. So he was never at church. He was farming, you know, for the summer. And if it was not summer, it was football season. Yeah. So very similar to that, we would go obviously, but on holidays and stuff. So, um, well, you kind of had an often. off again on again relationship with, uh, Christianity after we moved. You guys have as a couple, you mean, or? Yes, and not in believing, just engagement. Yeah, yeah. Right, if you will. Um, but, um, we have a close friend, a mutual friend of ours, Reed Miller. Oh, sure. Yeah, I saw him just yesterday. Um. Oh, how funny. Who, uh, Uh, we met by happenstance and Reed is so graceful and but forward with his beliefs that he kind of drew our whole family and, um, into church groups and mill city church and all, all these, all these different things. So we were. We were pretty engaged at that time, but he really amped that up for us a lot. And, um, I read the Bible cover to cover last year and, uh, he's still a part of the mill city group. I know that churches had a lot of like COVID kind of beat it up. Yeah. We haven't really, since COVID we, we're probably a little bit more preferential to Timberline just at this point, which is where we were going before. And, and we always liked Timberline. A big part of, you know, For us, it's child care and child engagement. Like, kids clubs and how they interact. Like, for us, I want my daughter to be able to go and I want her to learn stuff. I don't want her to just have, uh, just child care and playtime. And so I, that was one of the reasons we really liked, um, Mill City at first. And then now Timberline is kind of adjusted to where it's almost like a family. It's way back that way, where she, she'll get in the car and tell us what she learned and just like how cool it was, or they sing this song, and you know, so for us that's very important. So, um, yeah, that we were, we both were longtime members of a men and women's Bible study for years. They recently broke up and we haven't, we'd really like to find a couple's Bible study to do it together. Cause we've done it separately for, you know, five and seven years, I think, respectively. So, um, we'd like to take some time to maybe learn together. By the way, uh, something my wife and I go up and down in our, Habits of is a thing called first five and it's like an app and it like this fall it went through Yeah, it's kind of a devotional but it's kind of more toward the ladies side, but it's got good teaching and stuff So like the book of Esther was the last full thing and it takes five minutes in the morning Nice, you know after I get done with my shower, I jump in bed. We read some stuff. We talk about it I go to work, she gets up, you know, have to check it out because we are that one on one connection is super important for us. You know, the community is great. And like, when do we actually connect over God? Right? Yeah. So we're, um, at this point, um, the last recent season, we've been slightly less engaged. We've had too much going on, on the business side of things. But we're, I think there's mutual interest amongst our entire family because, you know, Our daughter is, her experience has been so great between Timberland and Mill City. She loves nothing more than Yeah, yeah. You know, going to church and, and being around that and learning about it. So, so let's, uh, let's bounce it over to family and talk about your daughter. How old is she now? So she's nine. Nine? Yeah. Does she have a name? Her name is Annabel. She goes by Bell. Um, she's amazing. She's, she is my mini me. She looks like, well, realistically she looks like both of us. Yeah. Tim gets a lot of opinions in our house now, but she's like a perfect combination of both of us. And, but she, she's, she's me down. Like I, I always read your own self. She'll say something to me and I'll be like so frustrated that she said something, what she said. And then I'll realize that I probably, that I think I said it earlier that day, like we are the same person. That's awesome. Yeah. She's kind hearted. I'm kind of trying to find her way. She's not. Um, she's not the most coordinated or athletic, um, which we're athletes. She is one heck of a swimmer. Yep. Yep. So we've been, she really engaged in swimming. So we've been, we've been kind of living those swim parent life the past year and a half. Yeah, she's been doing club swim for the last few years. That's kind of finding your, where your body's wired for. I just had Mandy Mullen on a few weeks ago and she was like, yeah, I can run the Leadville 100, but. Like if you put a ping pong paddle in my hand or any sports thing, like my lack of hand eye coordination is going to show through like, just like that. A hundred percent. And Belle's kind of built like a swimmer. She's long arms, long legs, tall, lean, like she's build those shoulders up a little bit. She'll be solid. Yeah. So no, she's, she goes to Riffenburg. She's the only child obviously, which as we bought a, to the studs remodel right before COVID and had the remodel going on during the. bulk of the COVID shutdown. We were actually living with some very close friends, um, when things shut down and during the shutdown. And it's been one of the greatest blessings. It's in the Parkwood neighborhood. And at the time it was, it was older, there was older couples there. Now the, uh, Parkwood's turned over. Yeah, the three houses next to us have girls within a year. Oh, it's so great. Plus minus of Annabelle. They just go knock on each other's door. Like, what are you doing today? Half of them just come over without even shoes. And vice versa. They've all got stuff where we can communicate with the parents and watches, you know, so we can text and stuff. Hey, are they at your place? Exactly. It's so fun. She's just, That's really cool. We just thrive so much in that neighborhood. That's really cool. But also, when we were doing the remodel, and we were living with our friends, you know, we moved from a brand new build to this house we're remodeling and living in just, I mean, A demo zone. A demo zone. Yeah, yeah. Like, where we had to wear shoes inside the house. A hot plate. It was, oh. 100%. Folding table. We didn't have a kitchen. We literally. Grills. I had like a little bar area where we had like a toaster, a microwave, and like an electric skillet, and that's what we did for dinner. But then we went from that, to living with some friends, to back to this house. But I think it really helped establish like, the, just like, uh, home really isn't like a house. We're a unit. Like home is where the three of us are together. And neither one of us has ever been super attached to things or houses. And so I think that was really good for us to hopefully help establish that with her, that, you know, we can be happy and we can be safe in like multiple environments if we're together. And so it was so awesome. And also having friends during COVID that we were just stuck with was great. We made other people to talk to. Yeah, that, that was. That was one of the most like, connected we ever were. Right. By the end of it, we were tired. I mean, after we'd moved like four times. Yeah, I think we lived with your mom for a few weeks at one point. We lived in one of our VRBOs. Well, you guys have been, uh, uh, you know, before your daughter was born, You were a two person unit for a long time. Like going back to your teen years, even before you were really even dating, you were kind of starting to become a unit in some ways. And then like to have this extra influence in your life and extra accountabilities, right? Like you've only really been accountable to each other for most of your lives. Now, finally, Bella's starting to hold you accountable. So that's been super life giving like moving into Parkwood, having the amazing neighbors that we have. Having her feel, um, like she has these direct, quick, other relationships. That it's not just that kind of only child. You can turn her into a latchkey kid anytime now, just about. Right? Like, you guys can do whatever. You don't have to, but you could. Um, we always do a one word description of the child. I'd like to get a stab at that from each of you, if you're willing. I was going to say kind. That's the word I was going to use. Really? Oh yeah. Oh, what a compliment. That is how she's wired. Yeah. She's super kind hearted. It wants to help everybody. Um, always wants to be there for people. If somebody's hurt, she will immediately go over there. Um, I, I just say, just in general, she's just wired, very, very sweet. Yeah, that's cool. That's one of our, our, we have six values at Loco Think Tank. Uh, be smart, be kind, be true, be local, be the change, be you. That's awesome. Yeah, I, I believe that kindness is one of the main missing portions of the ugliness in our world. For sure. Like so much can be solved and so many conflicts can be avoided from it. Like, I feel blessed that that's because she was born with a kind heart. Like, like there is that is the more I'm doing children. Like you can train that. Yeah. Some are born that way. Some are not. And you can see at the end of the day, um, so when she was little, she would be so confused if somebody was mean. Like she, right. Oh yeah. Yeah. Somebody doesn't like me. I'm like, What? She could not understand. If somebody didn't want to play or something like that, like, it just didn't even occur to her that that was even an option. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Um, we've touched faith, touched family, might as well jump onto politics. Um, let's see. Is it Super Tuesday? No. Is it next week? Yes, it's next week. Maybe today. I thought it was today. I think it's today. Yeah So let's start at a national level politics, uh, we've got a battle of the Dimwits? Something. I don't know. That's as good a word as anything. Like, I was so disappointed, frankly, that, like, I haven't voted for a mainstream candidate for president since I was 18. I voted for Ross Perot with my first vote, and I've never voted mainstream. But the way that We've abstained also, or we've, we've voted independent a time or two, at least I have. Yeah, sometimes at least. The way the Democratic Party shut down Any, like, whiff of competition for an obviously senile, declining man. Like, that just, like, the evidence of deep corruption in our country, to me, from that singular act. is almost terrifying. Sure. Politics is terrifying. There's no, there's no middle ground anymore. Like we talked about earlier where we, like Trump wants revenge. Biden wants to protect America from orange man ban and he doesn't even understand what those words are. How are those the people that we're looking at? Right. Like really out of everybody. Right. There's a, there's a podcast I listen to a lot that says the system is designed to produce the outcomes that it produces. Sure. Well, it's like, well, f k. Yeah. If that's the reality of our system right now. Right. And, and South Park called it best between the What was it? The turd sandwich and the flaming Douche or something. yeah. And that was in 2012. Yeah. It, it, it seems, um, it, it seems like the power and greed have just taken over all points of logic Yeah. On from a leadership perspective that there's just people trying to protect their own interests, which has been that way for a long time, but it's become comical at this point. Right. You know? Right. I don't even know what to think. I couldn't even tell you how I identified with any of it just because of, I don't want either of them as president. I agree with you. I, I, we're not very, uh, you're not politically active. We're not. Yeah. Yeah. We're not. But we can, we stand to know enough, but I read a couple of headlines about a consideration of could Biden actually not run or be replaced. Well, and then what happens? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like, who, who becomes the candidate then? Because then it isn't really the, will the people on, who's on the ballot. Right. As far as an incumbent. Because you typically have an incumbent. Right. If Biden wins the primary and then there isn't time for another primary. Right. Right. Like, you just put Gavin Newsom in? Or Michelle? Is it like a designated hitter kind of thing? Does Kamala automatically jump up? Yeah. I don't know the answer to that, but I thought for a fleeting moment that there was logic. I don't think, I don't think Biden will run. Oh, really? I don't think he'll be the Choi. I don't think he'll be the candidate. I think the Democratic Party is positioning him for departure. Interesting. That's what it appears. Between some of the news organizations starting to actually talk about things and some of the, the dirt from some of the file handling starting to stick, the stuff like that. I think they're positioning him for departure. Yeah. But who they're going to put there? I don't know. I'm just going to find somebody in the middle. Somebody who can actually communicate with, within all the parties. What do you guys think about Robert F. Kennedy? I agree. Um, again, not being politically active. Um, I I've, I've, I've heard a few of his things. They seem to be generally reasonable. Um, I, he seems more in the middle than any of the other candidates currently. Um, Yeah. I suppose. I do. I like his disdain for the regulatory capture and his willingness to speak out. Yep. I, I think the, a revenge tour from Donald Trump is just not positive. I don't care what you think. I agree. What side of the aisle you're on, there's nothing good that comes from that. Yeah. So, um. So. So, it's once again a turd sandwich, or a giant douche, a giant flaming douche, flaming douche, yeah, way worse than the regular douche. So, should we talk about Local politics? State politics? Like, we've got, like, this immigration situation is comical, almost, in, like, like, all the, all the headlines right now are how Republicans refuse to work with Democrats on getting an immigration deal figured out. Right, and, and both sides refuse to work with each other. They always play, yeah, it's Whoever controls this news cycle. Well, and, to be honest, it seems like The system is intentional on perpetuation of the existing system. Sure. That's my probably biggest criticism of the, the current status is There's no way for actual resolution. Yeah, yeah. No, and there's no compromise. Yeah. Like if you want to be a centrist, Good luck. Your party is never going to put a dollar into your re election campaign. And you're, by definition of the media, you become an enemy of 60 percent of them. Joe Manchin, Christian Cinema, and stuff. Like, there are like a couple of vestiges of independent thought among candidates. Or Rand Paul even is a good example of that, where he's like, These are my principles, I vote that way. I've always found it interesting that, Uh, independent catches so much criticism for like individual thoughts, whereas like issues with individual concepts, but like the two party system, like you can disagree with 49 percent of their individual thoughts, but because you agree with 51 percent all of a sudden you're that person. party. Right. Like, there's no concept of, let's discuss the positions on each of these concepts. Yeah. It's either you are or you aren't. Well, if, if you're a person out there listening right now, I'll go ahead and say this. Can you identify and agree with every plank in your party's platform? You're an idiot. Right. You've drank the Kool Aid. Right. You drank all the Kool Aid and you're a fool. Yeah. And you haven't learned how to think clearly for yourself, in my opinion. Yeah. You know guys don't have to say that, but No! I will. Are you independents, then? Um, I would identify as an independant. I'm, I'm, uh, socially, uh, more liberal. You're a libertarian, too. Physically conservative. Two thirds of our guests are that. But they just don't like to call themselves libertarians, because that seems too, uh, Yeah. That's how I, how, what are, how do you identify? How do you identify? I think we both changed to independent a few years ago. Um, kind of. Were you left? Were you right before? We, I was right. Yeah, I say I grew up more right. Um. Okay. Uh, or New Mexico's a little more left. Um. More left. So you were kind of standing out as a mildly conservative in a left world. Well, private Christian school. Right, right. More right. Yeah. Um, business. being a little bit more right in general. And we see a lot of that with some of the regulations that we deal with. And part of the, part of the reason of wanting to change out of some of maybe the flower shop, there's so many new regularly regulations that we have to deal with that, that two weeks notice to a scheduled change and some of that dumb stuff we first got into the, into the business that didn't exist. And not that it's all, all bad stuff, but you know, my, Well, it all keeps people from wanting to start a business. My filings are at least 30 hours more per month from when we first started just based on these new laws that come in. And it is hard. That's so much. Um. Did you say 30 hours? At least 30 hours more. Oh my God. That's for a CPA. That's 10 hours a week. Yeah. Doing your own filings. And efficient. Right. So that's like so much gunk in the system. There's a lot. Yeah. So it, I, you know, it. Yes, I would say we're in the middle. It's interesting. Just real quickly. We're going back to the, to the flower shop sale, but it, the initial conversation with these folks who own flower shops in Colorado, they said, one of the biggest drawbacks of us potentially acquiring your business is that it operates in the state is unbusiness friendly as the state of Colorado. Colorado has flipped from quite business friendly to very business unfriendly in the last 20 years. Well, and some of the filings Accelerating that shift as well. And some of the filings that I have to do, I'm filing the same information with Three or four different right entities like how is that fucking ask them? Well, why is that not all combined right? I mean if I'm filing it for wine, I'm getting well exacting information The reason is because government employees judge themselves and one another by the size of their staff and like the more Peons they have doing necessary stuff. Right? That's, that's how they, well, we talked about that. And the fat earlier. You know, you figure out how to run well. Government doesn run more efficient. How do that? That's the hard part. Government does not like public union should not exist. Argue, tell, prove me I'm wrong. Yeah, you're, I don't think you should. Taxpayer dollars to hold taxpayers to up to like, yeah. You're not gonna find resistance. I just think that's like public unions period should never be able to exist. And certainly should never be able to strike. Sure. You cannot harm me, using my money to harm me. Right. Doing, uh, public service. Yeah. Like, fuck off. We were, I would say that, in, in certain ways, we were supportive of Polis throughout, uh Yeah. Especially throughout COVID. When I first saw him debate Um, before he won the election against the Republican opponent and I've, I've watched the Republican opponent. I was like, Oh man, this guy's dumb compared to Jerry Polis, but, and he was fairly libertarian and fairly business friendly. And then he got his eyes on becoming a big guy in the democratic party on a national stage, which he still has like almost all of like, that's his big, well, it's funny how you've seen that change. Cause that's very similar to, I say what we saw as well. Where you could just see that transition. Yeah. No, he was a relatively reasonable person. Yeah. And now he's become kind of a suck up to the, to the, to the And so they're making all these, you know, quick move changes that make no sense, but have lasting impact for our entire state, but hyper focused on, on business owners that what's the retail delivery fee? Yeah, we have a Colorado retail delivery fee now. Oh, 28 cents. The accounting for it is insane. That's 50 cents a transaction. There's no one, there's no fee that's 28 cents per delivery. What point of sale or system do you know that's able to reconcile 28 cents per delivery? Most of them do a percentage. You do yourself as percentage, but then you do that plus a flat amount. It's just difficult. It's caused a lot of headache for places. Right. Well, and so people just non comply. Right. Or they pay for out of profit. Right. Stupid laws should be ignored. Right. Um, personally, I think that's kind of almost an obligation of citizenry. I'm a real follower, so I know, it makes you very uncomfortable. I see you right there. But I think it's almost an obligation of the citizenry to ignore Things that are harmful to the citizenry. I think, unfortunately, what happens a lot of times is the business owner ends up eating that, proud of their profit. Totally. A lot of places, they can't figure out how to maybe charge that 28 cents, so then they're like, well, I'll just cover it. Yeah, or they take the risk of not paying that 28 cents. And that's one example of ten things that have happened over the past three years, you know, that are state specific, that have complicated, even if it's not added cost, most of them have added cost, but it has complicated the way even the smallest businesses do business. Would you guys ever consider moving out of Colorado because of its poor business climate? Maybe back to New Mexico, be closer to Danielle's family? I don't think so. Thailand. Thailand instead. We're not going to Thailand. We're going to wherever moving to Italy. Texas is more likely. No, I mean, we really, truly love Fort Collins. Like, just love it. I remember just moving out here and, you know, we came out here to just go to school and it wasn't even a question after we were here for a week of where we were going to end up. We just fell in love with the city. The city of Fort Collins has also generated a significant amount of wealth for us. Sure. So, you know, we can talk about the negatives, but there are positives that aren't necessarily politically based, but the reasons to live in Fort Collins have generated, exactly. Yeah, for us it outweighs. Yeah. A lot of that hardship. Yeah. For sure. Let's see if I can find a Wyoming address to pay taxes by. Fuck off, Jared. You don't get my money. Uh, excuse me. I shouldn't be that blunt. Um, it feels like we've kicked that cat enough. Anything on the political, uh, realm that you'd like to comment on, either from a business standpoint or? No, I mean, I would say we do generally, we are not very political people. We have our opinions, but, um, we, we don't actively. Participate in politics very often. That's the challenge really. So like this whole Democratic Republican thing or socialist capitalist thing, it's really more about authoritarian and free freedom person, you know, and like most business people mostly just want to be left alone. Right. And, as it turns out, a lot of people actually want to be told what to do a lot. Like, it makes them feel good to know that they're checking the boxes of being a good citizen and stuff like that, unfortunately. It's an interesting way to think about it. Yeah. I, I don't, I agree, like, that makes sense, but I've never thought about it in that particular way. Um, I don't know if you, do you read my blog? I think you're probably on my mailing list. Yeah, I, I don't read everyone, but I read a lot of them. I had one some time back, uh, it was, I, too, am an authoritarian. Mm. And, and the punchline was basically, and the authority that I listen to is God. The rest of you sons of bitches can piss off, you know, cause that's the authority that I need to listen to, not the state. Cause if you think the state is the God, then you're wrong. Especially when they go in one direction so aggressively and quickly. Well like Michigan just stopped their, uh, uh, Right. To work state status. Yeah. Which is going to be terrible for them. New York is doing such dumb things to themselves right now. You look at what Portland and San Francisco, they went from two of the highest value real estate places on the planet to nobody even wanting to visit. Right. Right. Nobody even wants to go there. That was another blog title from years ago. It wasn't a title, but like Europe, literally like Germany, especially, which is the economic capital of Europe, unquestionably it was, but Europe cut their own hands off to stop themselves from sitting from this climate change crisis. You know, they went from 10 cent electricity up to 35 cent electricity because they shut down on their nuclear, they shut down, you know, and then last year they're burning fricking late night and tree stumps. Yeah. And it's just. I don't know. This is hard. Sometimes I feel like things happen because it feels like it's for the right reason, but then it causes so much push into the other direction that maybe it just wasn't something you thought about to start with, and you can't pull back on that. Like California, like trying to, okay, we're not going to sell any non electric vehicles by 20, until, by the time of 2030 or 2035, except the fact that our grid could only handle half of the anticipated growth in electric demand before then. Yeah, I, I've seen, there's a few states that have made that claim and none of them are anywhere close to making it. No, it's messed them all up. Nor are there plans in place to get them to. No, there is no plan in place. Yeah, it's when conjecture turns to policy without proper analysis. Yeah, yeah. We're going to run over a little bit today. Um, the loco experience, uh, is the craziest experience that you're willing to share, uh, with our listeners. I feel like that we've shared a few of our crazy experiences already. Tell me more. I mean, can you share more about that? Like what was the situation though? Like this guy came across and hit her right in the side of the car. Yeah. So it was a. Uh, I lived in a little suburb of Albuquerque that had two lane roads, some had ditches, some didn't, where this significantly drunk individual met our friends who were right in front of Danielle, um, they could get all the way off the road. So they swerved off the road. where, where he met Danielle, it was a ditch. So it was ditch or virtually head on collision with the 19th. Oh, so you were moving. I thought you were stopped. Yeah, no, they were each going 35 miles an hour. Oh wow. Um, or 35 or 40 somewhere in there. But, um, so yeah, just wow. So you saw these cars like, Oh my God. Yeah, it was crazy. The, the guy, um, was like three or four times, three times the legal limit. Oh wow. Had an open container of Jack Daniels, didn't really think anything of it, that's what, it was one of the more infuriating experiences of my life, you know, just, he just said, oh yeah, we'll wait for the police to come, you know, it was a, it was crazy, um, that's how I met Daniel's parents, uh, it was that night, right? So what happened, you like, Ran up, grabbed her out of the car and took her to the hospital, took her to the ambulance, ambulance came, but no ambulance came I ended up going with my parents because I didn't want them to have to pay for an ambulance So, so I was like, always super achieving. Yeah, I was like the hospital's not far, my dad and mom took me and Yeah, I had glass in my head. I remember weeks after having to pull glass out of my forehead that was just embedded in there. It was horrible. Missed most of the senior year of volleyball. She was a four year letterman for volleyball and wasn't able to play very much that year, which was unfortunate. Um, lawsuit. It was, it was a thing. It was, uh, it's one of many things that made us grow up at that age in our lives. That was a big one of them for sure. And I was, she wasn't lying. I was planning to break up with her. The, uh, but she has still had a thing for her old boyfriend. So let's go back to that. Like. You were saying earlier, Danielle, that you kind of came after him, but were you coming after him to get some vengeance on this old boyfriend you weren't quite done yet yet, or what was the situation there? No, it wasn't like that. Oh, okay. I was eight, or seventeen. Right, I wasn't quite emotionally fully developed yet. No frontal lobe development, I don't know. At the time, it just seemed like a good idea. Yeah, we, we had been friends for so long at that point, not for so long, but had deep friendships, you know, at that point that, that there were a lot of intermixed things. Um, yeah, I was, um, I was pretty independent at that point in my life. So there were parties and like all kinds of things that, that were happening. You were basically free range from the time you were. Had a job. Yes. A hundred percent. Whereas you were definitely not that because. No, that isn't your personality. So like you would find a pen for yourself. If you got let out of the free range, kind of, that's exactly what I love you. That yellow. I love my, I like organization and guidelines. I thrive in having a schedule. Could I tell you guys a story about my wife and I, because it's, Kind of relevant to the same. So Jill's a organizer planner for sure. And I'm not. And in June of 2020, we planned, we rented my friend's RV for a hundred dollars a day, unlimited mileage. Thank God. Uh, and, uh, we went to ultimately go to Tacoma, Washington to see her sister for their shared, their twins too, for their shared 40th birthday. So we were leaving like May 24th. We had to be in Tacoma June 7th, or June 11th rather, and otherwise there wasn't really a plan. We had three weeks in a pocket full of, uh, stimulus debit cards from Uncle Sam at a Ford V10 31 foot Class C RV. And I was like, we're ready. Your lack of plan is already stressing me out. Right! And Jill is freaking out, man! She's like, well, what, where are we gonna stay each day? What cab car is this? Oh, for sure. Better, Blake. We'll stay at a Walmart if we need to. We got a camper. Nope. Nope. I won't make it. That idea wouldn't get any, even like off the ground. It would have been a nope. Well, we, we ended up, we talked through it and we were actually taking, actually, I'd recommend you guys to, uh, we can talk more about it after, but we have this thing we've been using in Loco because I've been the mixologist for years. Which means I try to figure out where you would fit which people you'd really jive with in these chapters Who needs your skill set and all that sure, but we've invested in this thing called hallows relational intelligence And Jill and I were studying this like at the same exact time I was going through a 24 hour certification thing and as I start they started to unfold the nature of her character well, and it even gets deeper because In our relationship, I had been getting increasingly frustrated that all my new ideas were getting shot down like the instant they came out of my mouth. And, I didn't like it. You might have experienced this before, Tim. Maybe. We've And once I knew more about kind of her wiring, every one of my new ideas was a threat to having, to her having a place for everything and everything in his place kind of. And it just gave me so much grace. It's true. I'm sorry. I'm laughing because you're going to love this literally. Just you're well, it's your life. Yeah. You guys, we should probably double date sometime and you and Joe can go talk about organizing things and we can float ideas and then we'll come back together and it'll be all good. So anyway, I say all that to just compliment the way that you guys have chosen to embrace one another's differentness. Enthusiasm over there. Yeah, enthusiasm with differentness even. Yeah. I appreciate that because it has been, it is our secret sauce of just like being able to recognize each other, support one another, even when we don't always agree. Yeah. Um, it's It's had a unique blend of work and in parenthood and marriage and spiritual journey and all those kinds of things. Well, I would say it kind of starts In some ways with covenant, right? You're like, we're married and we're going to be married until we're dead. And that's the rule. And we're going to have to figure it out in between there. And you're not allowed to be an asshole and you're not allowed to be a bitch. And you're going to go through seasons. Like I remember, uh, my Bible study leader talked about seasons in life and like, That would be her question to us when we first started. Just where are you at? What season are you in right now? Cause you're going to have ups and downs and it's going to feel like sometimes you're on this high, but then it's also going to feel like sometimes where you just don't have an out, you don't have an opportunity to change what's going on, but you're just in a season. So you have to try and like, you do have to figure it out. You do have these opportunities. And so, you know, with a different personalities, we always are going to have those seasons. And, you know, we do have our ups and downs, but you got to just focus on. Yeah. Getting to the next season sometimes. Is there any crazy stories that I, I kind of like slammed you right into that accident story. Is there anything that this, this podcast is going to be lacking if we don't share it? No, I, I don't think so. I think, um, you know, the crazy story that consumes us right now is just the, this fast exit out of Palmer Flowers. Finish this departure. Yeah. That's kind of. That's a crazy story right there. It really has been. Like a 60 day. Yeah. Or 75 day or something. That's crazy. Just, just the acceleration of it and all the pieces that we had to pull together has consumed us. I'm sure. I'm sure. So, but yeah, no, that the, I think the, the accident story is, is because nobody knows that about, and that framed so much of our, of our early life. Well, when you guys were talking about how mature you were at. 18, 19, 20 years old, you met Alma here a little bit ago, and she's been with me for almost three years and she just turned 21 in January and Lacey, you might have seen, but didn't meet what it said almost 21st birthday on the calendar and Lacey was relatively new with our team and she's like, Is that a joke? Right. Cause almost just, you know, she's 21 going on 30. We've had employees like that or whatever value them. Yeah. So amazing. So incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I've had correspondents with Alma. I would have never guessed. She's 21. Right. Well, and she's. Kind of Spanish, English equal, you know, and yeah, we have a soft spot for that. We've had a lot of, uh, really successful employee, employer, mentor, mentee relationships for people that have, you can tell they're, they're 18, but they're not 18 in the sense of maturity and ability to communicate and emotional intelligence and those kinds of things. Yeah. Well, I don't know, Tell people where to find you or something. You want to be found? Uh, you know, um, you can find me at Tim Jordan's CEO on Instagram. Um, but, um, yeah, we're, we're pretty private folks overall. That's just our part of why I'm honored to share time with you. Well, well, we appreciate that. We've lived a lot of our life out. Um, you know, on the forefront of a bit of businesses. And so, um, personal brands has never been like this key point for us. So nobody's ever heard of me either. So no, not, not an important thing for us. We're just happy to, to have the opportunity to tell our story. We hope it's, um, it is, I hope to inspire more people to start something, even if you're, you know, Just in college, you know, I love the opportunity because I've, I've told my story a few times over the years. Um, but it's fun to have the opportunity to tell it together because that's probably the most unique part of our story. Sure. Is that we've marched along together. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs or potential entrepreneurs will have a spouse or a significant other that they need to share. Yeah. Either reconcile it with or do it along side. And, um, like it's, it's doable, but it, it, it takes intentionality in good communication and it's fun to be able to tell the journey that we've been on with it. Yeah. Very cool. Well, Danielle, thanks for coming on your show and Tim, thanks for being here. Look forward to our next conversation. Thank you.