 Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Inc. 5000 award winner who provides services to the United States federal government. His name is Mark Masters and Mark, believe it or not, actually fights wildfires for a living. He was the National Young Entrepreneur of the Year and his business is actually fighting wildfires. So Mark's team is a solution provider to the United States government in helping with disaster relief and emergencies. But the reason why I came on today was to share what Mark said about ADA. He is a tribal company, a Cherokee Nation, very proud member. And when he first had his business, one of his initial ideas, part of his strategy was to become ADA certified. But I'll let Mark say it in his own words, what he thinks about getting ADA certification now too early. He'll start building out the infrastructure to be a stable and growing small business. Wow. Wow. Would you say that that's been your, helped you to grow the most at those particular ADA sole source contracts? You know, we've had a couple of slingshot moments over the last 10 years. But yeah, I'd say that was definitely the largest one in terms of, you know, having that volume of work, you know, dropped down our lab, which, you know, it didn't fall out of thin air. We had been working that for about 18 to 24 months on the backside to, to try and get that work. So it wasn't like it just magically happened, but anyway, yeah, getting that work gave us some stability and it gave us an opportunity to start building out some infrastructure to actually be poised to grow. So let's, can we just for clarity's sake. You were, you got, you received your ADA certification in 2011. Yeah, it's about to expire, right? I wish we had more time to, you know, utilize it to the greatest extent we can in the next 11 months here. Okay. And then you received your first major or what you call substantial contract in 2016. Correct. So five years later. Correct. And, and the reason why I say that is because a lot of people I believe want to go out and get ADA before they have any past performance, before they've done any experience. What would you say has been your experience and, and like you said, I heard you just say you wish you had it longer. Do you wish you had got it later? I do. And I've heard you talk about this podcast before and, and you're right, you know, like, so at the outset, that was part of our business model, you know, from the beginning, which was we're going to get our ADA, we're going to get our HUBZone, we're, we're going to get our DOTDB, we're, we're native owned and we're going to leverage that proudly to the greatest extent we can. Well, you know, what you find, and you've said this yourself, Eric, and a lot of people told, told me this, that you've got a finite number of years in the ADA program, and you're going to burn those early years trying to build the relationships, right, and do business with the federal government, and you're going to look back in the latter years of the program and wish you had just waited a few more years to get certified and, and I can't tell you how true that is, you know, and, and I remember hearing that when we were applying and we had just gotten it, and I thought, man, that's ridiculous. Why would you not want to get it as quickly as possible and use it to grow your business? But, but now, you know, coming out the backside nine, 10 years later, nine years later, I, I get it, it makes sense. You know, there's a reason that people have that advice. And so, you know, that would be my advice, you know, now if there's someone out there that's either about to apply for their ADA is applying. You know, if you've already gotten it, you know, good on you, but it's too late to clock stick and it never hurts to get another year to pass performance under your belt, grow your business, build out the infrastructure so that you can really make the most of those nine years you do have in the program. Well, thank you for that. No, I, and again, you know, I have the luxury and approach. I have a platform now, right? So I can talk to all kinds of people from different diverse experiences and backgrounds all over the country, in fact, all over the world now, and it just, again, it's a theme that keeps. And so as you can see, we've continued having the same conversation. But what I want to share just was that, let Mark say it in his own words. And I, and it was just fascinating to me because he also is a listener of the podcast. And that's why he said he had heard me say it before. And now it's coming for full circle. So again, you know, I'm not the only one out there saying to people, wait until you have some experience, wait until you start getting some contracts and you get the rhythm going. Wait until you start developing relationships with agencies before you decide to go out and embark on the ADA. I receive calls every week from ADA contractors that are or nonperforming or underperforming or not achieving their potential. And it's because they didn't build out that base in the beginning before they got started, they went out and used or thought they could use the ADA to build that foundation, to build that base. And the vice versa, the opposite is actually true. Thanks. As always, I hope that this video helped you in some way, shape or form.