 Hey, Gulfconn Giants family, Eric Coffey here. Welcome to today's episode with Mr. Anthony Clawson. His company specializes in IT and cybersecurity. He is a former U.S. Air Force veteran, served as a senior program manager with the Air Force. And now today has his own company where he is helping the Air Force so come the White House and many, many other agencies achieve their goals in IT. He is a veteran on business, and we talk about that today. Plus, one of the things that's really special about this particular interview is he talks about how Michael Jordan, right? Michael Jordan, the basketball player, how they have carried that mentality over into their business as well. So stay tuned for this upcoming episode with Mr. Anthony Clawson, our next giant. So my name is Anthony Clawson. I'm the CEO founder of Colossal Contracting. SBBUSB started in 2009, based out of Annapolis, Maryland and Georgia. Okay, okay, great. What was, what is one thing that was hard when you first started business that is still hard today? You know, it's a flooded market. There's a lot of competition, right? And when I thought about starting Colossal, I was a Sergeant in the Air Force, and I was working daily with contractors like Lockheed Martin and the big guys at AFDW. And then some small businesses, too. And I realized when I wanted to do this, I had to find a way to make my team and myself special. Something that was different, something that people knew when they say the name Colossal, what we're good at, what we're really good at, right? And being able to separate ourselves. And that is a constant work in progress. Day one, when I started in 2009 to our sales kickoff that's happening next week is how do we continually define our space in this market? What do we do that's special? How do people recognize us in our brand? And that is a constant evolution that you have to always be focusing on or you're just going to turn into another number. That's interesting. When you first started, did you have any experience in IT? I did. I was what is considered now a cyber transport airman. I was actually a wire dog and then I turned into a project manager. So I was handling the BRAC IT requirement. I remember BRAC. Yeah, I remember BRAC. That was a while ago. The main part of that was being run at AFDW for Chris City and all these places collapsing coming to Andrews. And my job was to gather all of the IT requirements for these thousands of people, make sure the spaces are ready, build out IT where needed. And it was a great senior NCO that gave me a chance that most staff surgeons wouldn't have that opportunity. It was mostly being held by lieutenants and officers. I was very thankful that senior Cloutier saw it in me that I could handle the position. And in some other great people, Ryan Principi, who actually works with us now was one of my former officers. But they saw it in me and gave me the opportunity to do it. And it just clicked. IT for me and the way to support the mission, I had these contractors that needed to support us. So when I thought about owning my own company and building it, I was the guy on the other side of the table at one point. Evaluating proposals, being tough on requirements, understanding and making them drive the fact that if I have a mission to do, AFDW has a big mission. We have the Pentagon, we have Andrews, we have Oling. There was no delays. If you missed it before I would get hammered. So I understood that mission protocol. So having that is what empowered Colossal to take that first jump. And that's how I got our first contract was when I left Andrews, I went back to that same community and said, hey, I have my own company. I still want to support you. I know Andrews and the Pentagon like the back of my hand, how can I help? And they pointed me in the direction of some larger businesses and I went and pitched myself to them and they thought I was worthy and I started getting subcontracts and building up slowly from there. Right. Well, well, and then your first hire, was it a network person, IT person, was a project manager? What did that look like? I actually reached out to a couple of people, but it was a mixture of my cousin who lived in Philadelphia. I knew it was just a hard worker. He was a cable pulling guy. The rest after that were Air Force buddies, guys that were in the Air Force with me that got out. And I called him one day. I was like, I know this sounds crazy, but I'm going to start, you know, my own company and we're going to work at Andrews. We're going to do low voltage cabling project management. And they were all wire dogs too. And they said, I'm on the way. And from there, I started placing them and we started earning our reputation as a good subcontractor. I think people forget the fact they want to go right to the prime spot and I want the big money and I want this. The lessons you learn on being a good subcontractor, prepare you for being a good prime contractor. And it's not the lessons you want to learn. Some of them are really tough and you get beat up by the big guys, but they have prepared me now to be the prime contractor and managed lots of stuff. It was a tough lesson, but I think it was required to get moving on. No, I agree. Absolutely. I tell people this is the government a lot of times gives you more than you can bite off. And so, you know, you want to learn that small rather than when you get too big and they're like, by the way, you know, we know you're going to do this IT thing, but can you fix that building to the same time? Right? But that's another doing IT. Yeah, we know, but it's the building. It's good. Right? Is that fair? In your contract, just do it. Yeah, it's good. You know, so yeah, I warn people a lot of times is I said be careful what you wish for because you might just get that plus some and we've had a lot of those experiences. So what, what one thing that was hard in the beginning that's now easier today? You know, the, the, it's really, it's tough because the needs, the wants, the troubles changes, your company change, right? Things that were like, for instance, lines of credit, there's a perfect one. So think about colossal started in 2009 when the economy tanked tank. Yeah, I was down and I had zero dollars to start colossal. I had, I had the last government paycheck of a staff sergeant, which doesn't go very far. And I had me, but getting lines of credit and people to back you financially, I saved up a hundred thousand dollars and over our contracts, and I went into a bank and asked for a $10,000 credit card. That's how bad the economy was then. And so getting those initial lines of credit, because what people got to understand is you better be ready to scale. If you're talking all this, you know, and you're that serious and you're intentional about growth, you need to be looking one step ahead. And that is, how am I going to handle that growth if I can get my hands on it, right? And that was something that in the beginning I was realizing like, and if I hit this next contract and I get 11 people, how am I going to pay for the first three months? You know, that's X amount of dollars. I don't have that capital. How do I get the lines of credit? So I would say to me that the hardest thing wasn't for me because I was, again, you have to sell yourself, then build the team and sell your team. I had that part, but getting the finances and understanding how the money works was the hardest thing. And as you grow, people that slam doors in your face year one and year two are saying, Hey, how you doing, man? I think in a meeting with you and talking about a line of credit, you're like, dude, remember me? I was the guy that you said I could have a $10,000 credit card. So I would say that the hardest thing for us that we encountered in a small business wasn't getting the work. It was figuring out how to execute it once you had it financially because it's not easy to get lines of credit for small businesses. And that was our big hurdle. Now that we're bigger, we have some more assets, we have things that we can leverage. And now I understand that game very well. And I had a mentor that said that if you don't know your banker by his first name and know where he lives, then you have a problem because you should be locked step with your banker and understanding and keeping them involved in your business. I do presentations for them. I call them to show them where we are, what we're doing. And sometimes they're like, I don't need that. But other times they're like, thank you. Now I can go into underwriting and ask them for the additional money because I understand your position. So I definitely would say one of the hardest thing was getting the financing to grow. Okay. Before I ask this question, I looked at your background, you went to Strayer's University, St. Leo University. Do you think that formal education matters? I mean, that's such a hard question. And I don't want to dislike your education. You know what I mean? Like, no, of course not. But you know, I mean, you're out there in the space, you're in the industry, you see people that you're working with, you said you hired some of your buddies. I mean, you know, that's the reality of it. Education, the accounting classes, I would say. Right. Self-education. Yes. The accounting, getting the principles of accounting in the MBA programs and you know, a lot of, you know, to be honest with you, the reason I stayed in school, I actually, I think I finished my second master's. I just went until literally the VA call me. It was like, you cannot take it. Because I needed that money to take care of my family as I was growing colossal. You got to think they pay you a percentage of that GI bill. Your living expense and things. It saved my life, man, because it helped me chase my dream. And I was so thankful that my service really paid off because I was able to take care of my family with that money while I was growing colossal. So the formal education part, I would say this. I had a couple of classes that were taught by industry professionals. And that to me was impacting. We had like vice presidents of large healthcare companies that would come in and teach and share. We had different people that would come in at St. Leo. To me, listening not from a professor who's never lived in our world, right? But they would get these guys that wanted to teach night classes that were executives. And I was just like, wow. Now I can dig in that. I was usually zoned down. It's not okay. I was thinking about growing my company most of the time. So I would step in and say, well, no, I did this yesterday. And this is how I did it. That to me is super valuable. So I would say any chance that you get to learn from somebody who's been there, you need to tune in. But the standard education, it teaches you how to do tasks, right? But that experience education that I got in a couple of those classes was amazing. Thank you for that. What do, and again, we've got some really standard stuff, but I don't know. This came to my brain when I was looking you up. What do successful entrepreneurs have to worry about as they grow personally, professionally, emotionally? What things do people have to be concerned over? For example, some people say more money, more problems, you see your problems change, things, you know, things are different now. Yes, you don't have the lines of credit issue, but then you have, I mean, you're getting to the point where maybe you're, you're knocking on the door of those bigger companies, right? You're not so much of a small business. You're becoming a threat to larger organizations. What kind of other things do people have to worry about? And that's big, right? You know, money changes people, right? And on all levels, right? Now, the lucky for me is I don't come from much. So it'll never change or define who I am because I didn't come from much, right? I had lots of love in my family, but money was not there. But I had the love, which was more important than the money. And so every dollar to me, I'm blessed and I'm thankful for and seeing able to be able to provide for my employees and their families, give them good benefits. I didn't have healthcare grown up. I never had dentist or healthcare, you know? So it's those things that I truly, like, you know, hold on to and really admire and I'm thankful for. So the money won't change me, but it will change other people. So I've noticed that, you know, envy is dangerous, greed is dangerous in people, you have to be able to watch those things. You know, but you've got to remember what got you here and stay humble in that way. And I don't allow that to change. But as the company grows to your point is there's, there's new obstacles that you don't see that the only way you're going to learn is through these types of conversations with people like yourself. And, and there's other types of learning experiences and education through mentors, you know, where when you get bigger, you become competitors, like you see people where, you know, we're all friendly when we see each other at the conference, but I think a swing they probably would like to, you know, and the reality is there's millions of dollars at stake. So trust has to be a factor, right? But if you stay close to who you are and where you come from, you're not allowing the money to change you, but you got to understand that it changes other people. So part of the other risks that come with this is the financial responsibilities. The numbers are just bigger now, right? You know, the payroll, you're looking at payroll, and you're just like, Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? I remember, you know, it when Colossal first started that, you know, my wife never knew that I paid payroll and didn't pay our rent. But I knew my people were going to be how I would get to where I wanted to go. It wasn't about me. You know, I've never told, I've told her now, you know, she's like, Oh my gosh, you know, because I got four kids, you know, like so, you know, it was a growing of family. But what happens is as, as you continue to grow, the complications are different, right? And they're on a grander scale. Now we have HR to think about, we have, you know, I have almost 90 people to take care of, right? And that that weighs heavy on me, right? Because actually care of our culture and who we are is everything. The minute you lose that, it's gone. So now, you don't have to worry about culture as much when there's three of you sitting in the same office, because you know each other, right? We're the Air Force together, like the culture is us, right? Now that there's 90 people to think about, you have to think about that. And how am I going to keep people engaged? How am I going to get them to love what they do and not just have this as a job at a career? So as we grow, it's staying humble, understanding that the obstacles are larger now, and they're bigger, which means when they're bigger, there's a bigger impact. When something slips now, it's not slipping this far, it's slipping this far, right? So we just have to watch those things. And as we grow, make sure that we stay focused on what is out there. And that's the culture. And you said you have 90 people to take care of. I saw somewhere you said 25% of your workforce is veterans. Yes, huge for us, man. One in four people, you know, our recruiter, Joe Gros, is just amazing. And, and we target talent, right? We go after everyone who's talented. And in some of these cases, the military guys, you know, we found people that we were interviewing guys that were on ships, you know, coming back from overseas, like those conversations were crazy. I mean, we're, we're going after talent everywhere, right? But in this case, one in four happened to be veterans, and we were static about it. I mean, that's not a lot of people can say that, you know, and, and being able to give back to the veteran community and the service disabled community is huge. Again, that's who I am. It's where I come from. They understand the mission. And what they do is when they get here, they also influence our non-veterans. So they can understand the mission to, you know, where the veteran may sit out and say, this is what that community is going to be looking for. Trust me, I know I used to sit right next to them. And I understand what they think in this, in this moment, you know? So it's, it's been a value to be able to scale our company, because they come in and influence the mission that we have that influences our customers. I like that. The fact that the veterans can help influence the non-veterans. It's big. It's, it's, it's big. I never thought about that one. Yeah. We, we just hired Brian Principi, who is a commander still in the reserves, and he was one of my commanders. And his impact on the DOD sales team has been just huge because some of these guys are amazing salespeople, but they, you've got to understand what we saw and what's in our heads. So he's able to fine tune their strategy to say, yeah, you're talking to the deputy. Maybe you need to be talking to this guy. And this is why. And what it's doing is it's, it's given that focus. And then when we're deploying, we're telling our deployment engineers, this is what the government's going to expect. Here's the contract. Here's their mission. This is what they're going to be looking for. And it is, it has done amazing things to the company. I can tell you the conversation we've had thus far, I have some people that I can send this to that's just going to help benefit me. I'm trying to tell them, hey, you don't understand what the government's looking at. You're like, ah, it's okay. We'll just send that in and we'll wait for them to respond. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you in advance, they're not going to go for that. So this conversation is, is, is valuable for me already. I can tell you this is good stuff. I'm going to, I'm going to send this over to some of my guys as soon as we get off. That's wonderful. Now, when you first started, you told me you had struggles with hiring in terms of lines of credit. You started as a subcontractor, but you were always, you said you were thinking about starting Colossal when you were a program manager. Does that go back to childhood? Did you ever want to have a business at some point because they say people are born entrepreneurs or, you know, do they become entrepreneurs when they forced into it? You know, what was it that took you there? Sure. You know, my, my father was a small business owner and so was my mom. And, and so, but we grew up where, where our whole family is railroad. So my family going back to great grandparents are all from the Pennsylvania railroad. So tough working class people South Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the Western PA side, the Erie to Altoona, very tough, you know, people that work tough jobs and became management. And then my dad, he was involved in some technology things in the beginning. And I always saw this and was infatuated by, and as a little kid, like, you know, I was a city kid. So, you know, I got in a little more trouble than I should have. But the reality is is I always had a hustle. I, you know, the first thing I would pull together all of the kids in the little neighborhood there, we pull all of our video games together, the original like video game stuff, and we would pull it all together and then we would rent it to kids from other blocks over and I had a little setup and I'd be like, All right, dollar for this, dollar for that, get out of here, cut out the kids that were giving me the game 25 cents or running this like enterprise from my room for my bunk bed when I'm like eight years old. But this is what I was always thought of doing. And then in high school, it became something else. And in college, I worked, I was a bodyguard and worked security. And my mentor is a multi multi millionaire that owned nightclubs, restaurants, shoe stores, jewelry chains. And my job is to protect him and protect his business. So this is me at 18 years old before the military, I did that until I was 25. And people don't realize I joined the military when I was 25 years old, which is, which is older, but it allowed me to follow this man around and watch him build businesses and me protect his house and understand how the business work. And it was like, it just sped my mind up. Right. But I needed the military to straighten me out because I had all this energy, but I needed it to straighten me out. And I was heading in some past that that weren't me, you know, and I wasn't I, the thing about that industry is it has things about it that I didn't like. And I needed some, some structure to finish my education. So I went into the military, which is very non entrepreneurial at the time, right? Like, at that point, it's hammer, hammer, hammer, you think you're tough, you're not hammer, hammer, hammer, you want to do it your way, don't hammer, hammer, hammer, and they're driving this into you. What it did is it gave me all the discipline. I had all my ideas still had all my visions, but now I had discipline. And then on the way out of the military, as I was working with these contractors, and I always tell this story of when was the day you decided to do colossal. I was in Iraq and Kuwait, and we were training contractors on how to splice fiber and splice cable, right? And I'm training these guys were in all the kinds of crazy places and 100 to 150 degree weather, splicing cable, you know, in some dangerous places, you know, and and one of the contractors said something to the other contract about how much he got paid. And I was my it blew my mind because you got to think back in 2007, what they were paying contractors and defense contractors. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Like Halliburton days, like Halliburton. Yeah, yeah. Who's the other one? Blackwater. Yeah, Blackwater. That's it. Oh, those guys, you know what? I think a couple of my buddies went over there overseas and like six months made like 150,000 or something like that. Cash, no taxes. I remember that. I remember that. I remember. And I'm training these guys to splice fiber and I heard how much they got paid. And I think I made like 10 grand the whole time out there. And, you know, in some and you're training them. Yeah. And I'm like, all right, time out here. I think I could bring something special to this. And then when I got to Andrews, I got into the business side of it. Right. And look at the vision as an enterprise on how to support a mission. And I learned from some good contracts. Lockheed was there. Verizon was there. SIC was there. You know, there was a lot of big guys that I got a chance. My job is to represent the commander and beat them up occasionally. Right. So I understood what was accessible, what was acceptable and not. Right. So, you know, through that vision is really how colossal started my vision for it. So ever since I was a kid to answer your question, it was always in my mind. But you have to get to the, you have to understand the target or the best and then make sure you're connecting the dots on the way up. Right. And I think a lot of people want to skip these steps. Me included. Any entrepreneur does. Oh yeah. No, no, no. We're entrepreneurs. We're like, you know what I mean? Like, that was part of these like, you know, groups where people had all these ideas. Ideas are great. But if you don't know how to do the disciplined executed steps to get there, you're going to fall short. And that's what the military did for me. Once, once I knew how to take the hustle that the street and the life that was before all of that, you put that discipline in it and it was able to connect those dots. So let's say the guy or the girl, you know, I'm an expert at artificial intelligence. I'm an expert at solar charging stations, right? For the new electric cars, government, you know, they're going to spend a lot of money in these areas. Hey, Anthony, you know, what do you suggest that I do? Oh boy, that's tough. Right. So is that, is that the question of, and just make sure I'm, I'm getting this right. Is this is someone saying I have these talents? I'm saying I have these talents, right? So I'm, because again, I'm talking about new technologies, right? We're not talking about stuff that you're doing. So that way, hey, it's no competition. I may actually be able to support you. Maybe, you know, you'll buy me one day like Google or somebody, right? So, but hey, I'm, I'm this super genius. I've worked on these technologies. You know, I understand the government's going to be buying this stuff. In fact, I think with the new administration, they're prioritizing the solar charging stations now, or the charging stations for electric cars. I'm sorry, I keep saying solar, but the charging stations, I know that technology in and out. I'm the best. You know, I worked, I built, I worked on a technology. I've got a couple patents on it. You know, what do you, hey, where should I start? What do you think? Wow. And that's, that's a great question because I really think that people should take that question before they start a company and go after, you know, defense and civilian money because there's tons of talented people out there, right? But it was, it's a mixture of your, your talents and who you know, right? And what you know about our industry, what I would say to that person is you better clearly understand how you're going to reach the government. And what I mean by that is there's this huge gap between your idea, your talents, and executing a government contract, right? And receiving one. You know, did you think about what type of entity you are? What are you going to be? Are you going to be an STV OSB? Are you going to be an A&A? Do you know the process to be an A&A? The process to be CV, STV OSB? So you start your LLC and you start mapping out. But if you're not thinking about the creation of your company, who you're going to be, who you want to be, who your target audience is. And then once you understand how you're going to get the business and market yourself of who you are and what you're going to do, it's how are you going to execute a contract? Are you going after primes? Are you selling to SIs? Are you selling to the government? Are you going to try and go all in? Do you have the contract vehicle necessary? How do they do acquisitions? So if I'm focused on AI and I know, say AFDW or special operations company goes after it, you would have to do enough intelligence gathering to know what big players are there now. What's your competition looks like? How am I going to get my talents to become something they want? And how do I get it executed? People move too fast. They forget about all of those cycles that I said in between that are the most critical part. You have all this talent and hey, check out this thing I created. And then they're like, I'm here. And everyone's like, yeah, you and everyone else. So how can I help you? I know that sometimes maybe my goal to getting the influencing on the government is maybe influencing SIs first. Maybe if I can get that meeting with the program manager from Verizon or whoever else and say, hey, listen, this is what I do. This is my set aside code. Help me help you. I know I have a customer at Andrews that's interested in this, but I don't have the WITS contract, right? It's piecing it together and making sure that your idea, your business can be marketable, can support a government's mission and can be acquired in some way. How do you connect all those dots? And I think that people don't think through that enough. You said something about get the business and market yourself. I think even you skipped over that part of, right? Like, hey, I don't even know how to market. Hey, look, I'm just the guy who does this and knows the technology. I don't know about marketing myself. Where did I go to learn how to do that? And that's a great point. And again, when I first started, I was like, but my value was me and my intelligence of what I knew and what I could provide to the government. But I knew that I couldn't go directly to AFTW because I had no contract with them. Colossal and Hammy, that was just some dude, right? Like, how am I going to grow this thing? So what I did is I sold my talent and understanding to larger companies to say, bring me on as the subcontract. I know you have this contract vehicle because I was there or I did FPBS. I did this. I go to market there first. And then I bring my talents and my connections to the table. And then the big guy goes, oh, you just don't have your hand down. You're saying, no, sir, I want to bring, I want to bring value to you and the customer. And by being an SDV USB, you get to check a box and I have the relationships and I have the talent. All of a sudden, the conversations I was having were much different than me getting the meeting with the program managers and giving a little review of who I was. They were always like, dude, yeah, you're awesome. But what do you got for me? That's the big guy's mentality is what we got. And you know, I agree with you a thousand percent and I love it. And I appreciate that. Why do so many of us go in that way with like, hey, this is who I am. Why do you think that is? Why? Why do you? How do you think we're missing that? You know, you understand because for you to have to say it means we're missing it. Yeah. Yeah, no way. If we all knew that, this would even be a conversation. Right. So we're missing it somehow. I think those, those dots that I explained it earlier are so critical, right? But it's, there's, there's thousands of us, thousands. Right. Just in the Beltway, thousands of SDV USBs, right? Throughout the industry and a lot of them are retired generals, colonels. I was a little staff sergeant. Like I was the guy that getting yelled at or getting the coffee for somebody. I come up with great ideas and I would, I would be, but my job was to make my leadership shine and to make sure that the mission was bigger than you. Right. But I didn't have the clout like those guys had. So I knew I had to work even harder because I couldn't walk up to a door and be like, I'm former, former, you know, under this or that. That's not what I had. I had, I had the intelligence of infrastructure. I understood the mission. I figured out what the value of that was. I looked at my relationships. I figured out what the value of that was package it all together, went to a prime and said, this is who I am. This is what I can bring to you. And this is how I'm going to support the mission of the guy. And all of a sudden the DSIs or the largest were like, okay, I'll listen to this. It wasn't my handout. People think if you start an SDV USB or an 8A, that work is just going to fly into your lap. It's the farthest thing from the truth. And in, since 2009, the companies that I came into business with that were SDV USBs, most of them are gone. That is the reality. I watched that industry as in 2009, my competitors that were just starting new companies, most of them are now gone. And that's the reality of the situation that I had to be hungry. I had to work 70 hours a week. No one was going to give it to me. I had to go get it. And it's the only way that it's going to be successful is because you have to sell you in the beginning and what you can do. And I think people miss that part. They're like, I'm here. Let's do some business. You know, I got a company. They're like, yeah. You know, what did you meet these people at the, the primes? The relationships, you know, I would, I would start the connection. So in the beginning, I, I had my relationships and then I would meet other larger is large, you know, small business offices. I would, I would engage anything where someone would give me a chance for me. And through this, I learned that hard lesson of what I just said of, if I just show up here and say, look at me, hey, I'd like to do business with you to the meetings were very, very short. But if it was like, I understand this very well, I can bring this. Would you like, are you interested in working with me? Then it started becoming like, okay. And that's where the spark started, right? It was, I would go to these, these people, you know, through relationships, you know, when I was in the military, but also I would go to, you know, Washington technology, breakfasts, I would go anywhere in the beginning to shake a hand and put in the necessary time. And let's be honest, 95% of those things will go nowhere. But it was the 5% of people that say, Hey, you know, I like this kid. You know, I, I may give him a shot. And that's all it took with someone to give a shot that if someone gives you that shot, you got to open the door and go. Great, great. Are you still doing that today? Oh yeah. I mean, it doesn't stop man. I get out there and again, the beauty of now is now it's why colossal is so special and, and important today is because it's not about me anymore. I built pillars, right? I put leaders in place and snap them in and build business units around them that there's a bunch of Anthony's out there now shaking the hands of building their own relationships where when colossal becomes when I realized how, how, how much we've grown is when I would walk into the office and hear six conversations about new relationships that I had no idea about until briefed, you know, where I'm like, Hey, what's going on? I heard you talking to Verizon. Oh yeah, they're involved in this and we're doing this, this and this, this army program. And then I knew it that now they're taking my vision of what I created it furthering it and then also putting their, their little stank on it, right? You know, what makes them special. Right. Leaders that I bring in, I don't tell them what to do, brought them in for a reason. I give them my vision and they take it and run their own business unit. And you can see them build columns like that, how the company can scale. And that's, that's what I've seen. How did you learn how to hire people? You know, I'm big on trust, man. And I read people, be honest with you. That's it's, it's really strange ever since they talk about that, right? Higher, you know, let's say higher, slow, fire fast. Yes. We, you know, all of our people go through a pretty rigorous process where in the beginning obviously it was just me and then, you know, I have, you know, partner and I have other leadership now that we all have to agree, right? Like we sit down and we go through the people. But the biggest thing we see when we hire is we look at the core of who somebody is, right? Some things can be trained. Some things can be taught. You have to really look at the core of who that person is and figure out if they're colossal or not. They may be great somewhere else and I always, you know, it may work somewhere else, but it may not work here. But when we hire, we go through word of mouth first. That's always our best. You know, someone says, hey, I've got this guy or, you know, I bring people to the table, but then I let everyone involved, you know, make the decisions and we've made some amazing hires over the years that maybe I was watching since Colossal started in 2009, but I couldn't afford them or I couldn't have the band power for it. I'm watching these people throughout the years and then I have the resources and I'm like, hey man, you want to get on the rocket ship and they're like, yes, sir. And that's how it's become really special. You've got to really look for the core in somebody. And then as you're doing a recruiting watch, you see who the players are in the industry. Everyone thinks it's really big. This industry is not that big. Again, like you said about the co-prints that you were aware of and then a lot of the guests on the show and then yourself and it's like, wait, we're all connected. And then even just researching you this morning, I'm sure vice versa, you're researching me like, oh, okay, I know these people. He's connected to it. And the same thing. I'm like, okay, I know this, right? And so it's like, okay, well, just shrunk the whole industry really quickly in one day. And we're all connected somewhere through a tier one or tier two relationship. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Your name is important. No, no, no, your name is important. It is. So you've told us all this great stuff. Tell me about when you're growing, do you have a horror story, experience that you could share? Oh boy. I'm sure you have a bunch of them. I was going to say, dude, any small business, you know, I would think in the very beginning, it was so volatile, right? You know, like you're trying to grow your business and you're doing this thing where you're doing consulting work to help your family eat and feed your kids. So you're doing consulting work, so you're part-time billable, and then you start bringing other people on. They're helping pay the company, but you know, you don't have lines of credit, so you're just making it every month. And there was a contract dispute in the very early years of colossal, but that had nothing to do with us. It was way above us, right? We were just a sub. And overnight we lost, I want to say, like 70% of our company. And it almost killed us. You know, it was one of the most heart-wrenching feelings I've ever had that my dream was almost squashed in a day, in 24 hours. And what it made me realize is I will never be in that position. I will never have all of my eggs in one basket with one relationship where something happens out of their power, right? It was not my nothing to do with colossal that was way above our pay grade at the time. And shut down 70% of our company to the point where I thought it was over, you know? And it was so impacting to me mentally that I changed the way that I was doing my vision at that point and realized I had to span out. I was such an Air Force guy and I'll always be, but in business you just can't have an Air Force account. Just one Air Force sub account where all your eggs were and living through that and being able to build back up, but that impacting us was just you imagine 70%. Oh, so I mean that's your, no, that's what happened when the pandemic with a lot of these big swans and everybody else, movie theater, everyone. Oh, so there's so many people that can relate right now to this story that are not in our industry or are and it realized the importance of spreading your eggs out. Well, I didn't realize the amount of cash flow that restaurants had. I thought the restaurants were thoroughly well capitalized. And when you look at the pandemic, it's that these people had six weeks of cash, six weeks. Yeah, I mean, you got to think and the large scale or the small to the large, something like that where your business stops and the flow stops. Your operations keep moving, but you have no cash. Right, no cash. Like what do you do? Like, you know, it breaks my heart every time I see going out of business, closing, it always gets me, you know, I can't even watch Shark Tank. I can't even watch it. And what I mean is there's so many great ideas, but watching people get crushed. Right. You know, like, because I've been on the other side of the table, like, hey, man, like I got this great thing and people were like, we're done. You know, many times people hung up on me or tell us me in the beginning, oh, just so many, because I'm going to be calling SIs and saying, hey, I sort of like to get a meeting, stop wasting my time, just put my face off, hang up the phone. And I just had to get back on my wheel, you know, give another call, but I got destroyed. Tell people what's an SI systems integrated. Okay, there you go. All right. Hey, go ahead. You got destroyed. Now, yeah, just destroyed. Just like, don't waste my time. Do you know who I am? And just remembering what that felt like to make sure I never do that. You know, but those were some dark days, man. All right. We're going to break around to something positive. Tell us about mission 22. Mission 22, man. So, you know, I don't think a lot of people realize that. So I saw the statistic about a year ago. I unfortunately lost to one of my friends who's in the military with me to suicide. I want to say three or four years ago now, right? And, and I was thinking about him for some reason. There was a picture. One of my friends saw me and I saw him in the picture. Why this dude was so talented, so smart, so charismatic. One of the happiest people I've ever met in my life, literally. And he was just like, when he walked in the room, was just a smile of sunshine where you just wanted to have fun and joke around. No matter where we were, he was that dude. And I got a call a couple of years ago that he had hung himself on base. And it broke my heart and I didn't understand it. And it made me start thinking into it a little bit more. I started doing some research and found out that almost 22 veterans take their lives. And when you think about only 1% or less serve in the military or the numbers change, you know, that small community that 22 people killing themselves at day. It really gripped my mind to think what what is going on here. This is something much bigger than we need to realize or that that America is realizing right now. Because unfortunately you hear about a lot about us when we die overseas. Yes, right. Helicopter crash. Right. Training mission. At the time, let's think about this math, right? 22 times 365. And how many times did you see in the news so and so kill themselves? So it was almost like an invisible terror that has taken over our veterans. So I looked at our team and our, you know, company and said, what can we do? Started researching foundation 22 that has a focus on giving mental health love, you know, making it not. We're also trained and we feel sometimes that we don't want to admit that we're having issues. You know, we're tough guys, tough girls where, you know, hey, I've been through it all. I don't want to ask for help. And what's been happening is it's been a snowball effect that has been taking the lives of these veterans that can't deal with the things they're dealing with. And they think the only unfortunate answer at the time is to take the life. Issue 22 focuses on the ability for you. It's okay to get help. It's okay to ask for help. We have programs that focus on you that don't make it a stigma. You know, I have plenty of friends, you know, that have died and that live with PTSD. And the reality is, is we need to talk about it. It needs to be out in the open. So we thought by supporting mission 22 and doing our 22 for you day, where we broadcast live and do it, 22 push-ups on the hour for every hour to raise money and awareness for mission 22. And all of the proceeds went there. It was one of the best days I've had across history and in my life to see how much money we could raise. That was year one. Year two, we're going for like 100 grand. So we're going all in. People were really excited to see that's Colossal's culture. That's what we do. That's who we are. And, you know, I asked our guys, do you guys want to be a part of this? You don't have to be. Everyone was like, I want some of this. So we, we did it. We were able to raise a bunch of money. And it's something that we is near and dear to our heart. A really quick story. The reason why I found it, Guff Hunt Giants and why I do this podcast and I also do the YouTube channel was because during the 2008 Christ same time, I had a friend of mine who his best friend took his life. And so, I mean, this people were the, again, at the time of my mentors, I was a construction contractor. This guy was doing 10 minutes a year in business. And then when the real estate market crashed and the bubble, everything hit, he went out of business, right? He lost everything and he took his life. And, you know, we moved to the government sector that kept our business afloat and kept us going. And I realized that, you know, if this guy only knew about the government marketplace, he could have just transitioned his business, right? More competent, me smarter, had, you know, had been around. But he didn't see any options that he didn't see in his way out. And so that's the reason why I started doing the channel that I created and the podcast that I did was because of that. It's amazing. You got to find ways to give that man. You can't just spend your life taken. And if, if we've been given these gifts and we just keep them for ourselves, what's the point of having them, you know? So seeing the shows like this and the ability to give back to fellow entrepreneurs and veterans and all of the people like to give that little piece of knowledge, maybe they get from this conversation that helps them understand that gap that we're talking about. So one day they can reciprocate and give back this one out. And that's, and that's what we do. And that's what we do here. And that's, that's what we're about is teaching people that there's another way out there. Because again, I understand that the government has lots of programs and they spend money, but they don't have a marketing budget. You don't see this advertise. You don't see this promoter's career path. Like, you know, the government even admittedly says that there's a shortfall in cybersecurity and tech and in America, right? People going to the internet. We're falling short to other countries which is creating vulnerabilities. But again, I don't see no national advertising campaign. I don't, you know, I don't see people, people like, people still ask me, what do you do for a living? Yeah, seriously. It's, it's, people don't have no idea what I do. I don't even tell, I usually just tell people I'm a government contractor. And they're just like, so what's that mean? You know, and, and it ends in many conversations, you know, but to your point is there's no manual. There's no college class you can take. There's just a lot of hard knocks and lessons learned and good mentors along the way that, that can help paint this story. And everyone's got their own story. No, everyone's got their own story. Do you have any books that you recommend or that you gift off to the people? So, you know, my big thing is leadership, right? Okay. Um, I, I love, um, the, um, Jocko Willick, um, and, uh, extreme ownership. Okay. Is, is a really core for, for what I do. Owning something is huge. Everyone has to have ownership in your company and feel like they're part of something. Because, you know, from the top down, if you have weak leaders that won't accept responsibility, it's going to be a vicious triple trickle effect down. So that book, having someone finally say like, now this is your fault. You need to take this, right? The good and the bad. I love when I ask some of my leadership, like what happened here? You know what they say? That's on me. I got it. It could be three levels beneath them, but the, always the response to them. I asked two of them the other day on a text message. Hey, where was the ball drop? They both said me and the beauty was, you know, that was three steps below them, but they were like, no, that's me. I got it. I'll let you know when it's done. I love that fact of owning it. And that book shows how that combat related stories can be brought over to our world, right? And not in the fact of, you know, we're going to fight wars. No, we're not doing that. But what other great example can be done of owning something when a life is on the line, right? Of when you have to lead in a world and a time that is very unforgiving, right? And what it teaches them is to own every bit of part of it. And I just, I really like it. Listening to them is pretty intense, too, if you do the podcast. Right, right. It was dawn, gunshots everywhere, you know, and you're just like, dude, like, ah, you can feel it, like you're there. You're like, you put you inside. You're like, okay. So it's, it's pretty cool. You know, I, I'm more of a podcast guy. Like I love listening. Right, right. I listen to entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban. I, you know, I love hearing from them. That is my real jam is podcasts now. I get more out of the, like I said, going out of a books and stuff. Yes. Yeah. Going for the experience stuff, just like the Jack Willick has been there, right? And a Mark Cuban who owns billions of dollars of, he owns so many businesses out in this world. And he looks to the small business to invest back in them. Most of those guys, when they get to that level, they're not messing with companies that are under $50 million dollars. Right, sure. Like they're not better to know who you are. This dude's investing in companies that are $100,000. Like I love that about him. He's crazy, right? He's all over the place. I really, when he first bought the basketball team and he used to get all the fines and violations. Dude, he's nuts. He's nuts, but he did the planes and the seats. But what I love about Mark Cuban is he's not going to change for anyone. Right. I love that about him. The good and the bad, right? And that's the thing about me and other leaders that I've met is don't let this game change you. Don't let this industry change you. There's a reason you are where you are. Stay true to that and you'll find that it'll pay you back. The good and the bad. I got a lot of bad stuff about me too. But I try to bring the good with it too. And seeing people like Mark Cuban and these other mentors that I've learned from in our industry is they've not changed who they are at all. Money didn't change them. The responsibilities didn't change them. They have different responsibilities, but who they are at their core is still the same. You said you have four kids. What are the ages? Oh, man. So I got a 12-year-old. I have a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a 14-month-old. Oh, boys, girls. Yeah, all boys. All boys. All boys. Yeah, Colosson House is real. The rest of it is real. So I got four little Taipei personalities duking it out over everything you could think of. There's a lot of praying, a lot of praying. But they keep me busy. And it's everything I ever wanted in my life. That's amazing. That's great. That's great. Recently, what's one of your happiest purchases you made off of Amazon? Oh, boy. My wife could probably answer that better than I could. She's pretty aggressive with the Amazon purchasing. I want to buy a whole lot from Amazon to tell you the truth. No? I'm not a big Amazon guy. You know what I buy is the stuff through the portal, like videos and podcasts. Movies still like that. Yeah, you know, oh, I did get a good pair of Air Jordans. There you go. So you know what? I'm a Jordan guy. All right. I'm a Jordan guy. Yeah, I'm a serious Jordan guy. See? That's it. She's the most ferocious competitor ever. Why would I not have a shoot? No, no, absolutely. No, no, I had to. You know what? I love that question. I start asking like my last 20 guess and you get so many different experienced answers of things that people, you know, what we never talked about during the whole show. And then they bring it up as like, oh, my sister has cancer in the hospital and I send her chocolates every week through Amazon. It's a connecting story. Right. It's a connecting story. So that that question has sparked so many different varying interests that people have outside of work and business and sure, you know, all the other stuff. So I found out you're a Jordan man. So I like that. I am a Jordan. I actually give Jordan's out to our number one salespeople because a lot of it is I actually have some sections of our sales training material based on Jordan because he was such a fierce competitor. If you watch those stories on him, some of the things he did and not accepting defeat and taking ownership and those things, we would call it be like Mike. And the way that he approached basketball needs to be approached in sales in a lot of way. You have to have a chip on your shoulder. You have to be willing to get hung up on. You cannot quit. You have to be relentless. Right. You have to be a little bit of selfish with your time to be able to make time for something bigger than you. Right. And his competition and the way he views things, we hold that tight because in sales you have to be competitive. I want you to not be happy when your name is number seven on the board. I don't want you on our team if that doesn't bother you. And that is the Jordan mentality. So to our number one salespeople, I buy them Jordans and I put a little rocket ship on them and a colossal logo that I have done for each of the Jordans. I'll send you a picture. But it's a big part of who we are. So there's that connecting story to my Amazon purchase boom. See, I would have never, I would have never even known to ask. See, there you go. No, I mean, listen, I've done this a couple of times. I've done it a couple of times. So I figured this thing out. Odd place for job that you work that no one may have ever guessed. Oh boy. So during high school, I would break concrete. I had a job. My dad worked for a concrete cutting company and they would drop me off in the middle of nowhere with a jackhammer, a sledgehammer, and a peanut butter and jelly in the Georgia heat and come back eight hours to pick me up. And I did this for summers. And it helped me understand that this was tough work. And I was the lowest. I worked for the laborers. So there was the guy cutting the laborer and then Anthony. Get out of here. That doesn't teach you humility and what a good day work is. Nothing will. So what that taught is like, I need to get an education. I want to be the laborer one day. Then I want to be the cutter. Then I want to be his boss. And then I want to own this place. That was my vision of how I saw my, how I was the lowest on the totem pole, doing what I was doing, how I didn't want to be that forever. And it was good that I was there because I know what that guy feels like now. And that is one of the biggest things, I think, that I've ever been taught is, I know what it feels like to be the installer, the laborer, the guy who breaks things, the guy who just carries things all the way up to the top. So I never forget what that guy feels like. So having that job, it taught me so much, number one, that it's really hot in Georgia and when you're on asphalt, that's 10 stories in the air, that your head better be covered or it will get burned, especially with the haircut that I have. I had a little more hair back then, but it went great. The reality is, man, it's having those types of jobs. And I did that for years, man, tough, tough work. Were you mad at your parents at the time? No, no, man, I always wanted to have a job. My parents never were like, you need to go get a job. I always had a job and it was my dad's work ethic. My dad was hardworking, fortunately just passed. But his experiences and what he's taught me, my hardest day is like, that's nothing. And it's because I've seen those days of work and what they're like. And Eric and I always say, my business partners, I don't want to go back. I want to work hard to continue to earn more to be able to provide for my family, which in turn provides for my company's families. I know what it feels like to be that and to not have money, to worry about every penny, right? To, was rent going to get paid? Were we going to lose our house? Were cars going to get repot? I felt that all in my life. I don't want to go back. You mentioned Eric's name. I saw that he's, you made him president recently. Yes. How did you guys find each other? Oh man, he's a one in a million. He's just is a one in a million. He worked for a company that was a partner of mine. He just, from a young age, Eric I think is only 35. I'm 40, he's 35. So a young dude understands sales in a way that is just out of this world. I'm telling you right now, he was one of the best in our industry when I first came to him with the opportunity to partner and become part of Colossal. And what I saw in him was, is not just him being the best sales person, but his genuity, I can say, being genuine, right? Being genuine was something that isn't always there in the sales world. It's just not, okay? It's whether you're buying a car or whatever, sometimes people lose that piece, but his customers will do anything for him and he would do anything for them. He'll pick up the phone. He'll do whatever's necessary. He'll lose money, not saying that anybody wants to do that. He'll do what the mission needs and what the customer has. And when I saw this in him, I realized he was very similar to me in a lot of ways. So what I didn't want was one day to have an investor in Colossal that just wanted their check every week, right? Hey dude, I own 49% of your company. Where's my check, right? And in an SDVUSB world, there's a lot of that right now where people are coming in buying minority shares. And then you answer to them in a lot of ways, even though you're in control, Eric wanted to bring something to the fight. He was like, no, I like your vision, Anthony. I'm willing to take a risk. I mean, he left a very good paying job to come take a risk with us in a very growing state of the business. And was one of those people that when he and I got together, it just boomed. And he was able to bring the sales piece. I understand business very well on how to build companies and what's required to get the contract vehicles, how to govern governor evaluations of contracts where he knew the sales piece, how to bring in the talent, how to go to market, how to understand the customer needs and how to deliver solutions they want. And so we just started growing the company and I attribute a lot of our growth to Eric. I mean, he's a great partner and we'll go out there and fight for it. Comes from a very humble beginning like myself. His family is everything to him. We just share a lot of the same values. And just like my dad, his dad is a hardworking son of a gun. And taught him these values that Eric has, man, you're not going to outwork Eric. Him and I try it all the time to outwork each other. And what we end up doing is just raising the bar for the whole time to keep up with it. Everyone should keep up with each other. So it's free to the fun culture, but he's a born and done. No, that's great. He's also a veteran. He's not a veteran. Okay, okay. He's a minority owner. He's a Maryland guy, a Frostburg graduate, actually. All right. Any quotes or anything that you... I know that you like Jordan and he's... But any other quotes or favorite sayings that you guys that you have maybe run an office somewhere or something that you guys say often? So this is a little intense, but I'm gonna... People have heard this probably in... First of all, your name is Colossal. And we look at you. I don't know how tall you are. I'm 6'2", 260 pounds. So, okay. All right. I saw you play a little football, so I mean... You're probably... I'm sort of Colossal and you all come together. I mean, again, no one ever approached me to be a bouncer when I was 18. Okay. I was a big kid. You're right. All right. I wrestled in 10th grade, 103s. Okay. Yeah. And I've never had a problem making a weight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard for me to weigh under 250. I would think I was like 17 year old or 18. I was always a pretty big kid, you know. So, you know, the name Colossal actually comes from basic training where I was getting yelled at. My last name's Colossal, right? So he's like, Colossal, Colossal, Colossal. You big Colossal, you get your butt over here. And he called me Colossal from then on. I don't think you do my name. So he just called me Colossal. Colossal. And all of the other trainees starting calling me Colossal and Colossus. And then I got the text from everyone just called me Colossal. And when I thought about the name for the company, I was like, what are there more fitting to help me get where I am than the name given to me in basic training, you know? And that's where Colossal came from. I had another veteran. And I'm going to let you tell your story, but I have to say this. His name was Business. It's called Underlay Construction. And I said, why? They said, because it's so tough. Hairy up, underlay, underlay. Hairy up, hairy up. That's a good one. And so he named this company Underlay. That is hilarious. So it's a simple. I'm telling you, you'd be surprised what motivates people and where they get things from. I mean, I think as a human nature, we're all kind of connected and we kind of think alike in a lot of respects, even though we're all very unique and different. So all right, give us that intense saying that you've got. So I'm going to give you the backstory where it came from. So I was in Kampuk, Iraq. And we were there on mission to help repair damaged infrastructure. You know, war is really rough on communication. So we were there. And we were staying with an army unit and a security force unit that had patrol. These guys were unfortunately getting blown up almost every other day. And these dudes that were going out on these patrols knew every day that they were facing imminent danger and still woke up every morning, cleaned their weapons, got in that truck and drove around there to protect us from getting missiles lobbed over the fence or anything else that they could do or setting traps and, you know, different mortar attacks, you know, a lot of IEDs. And this one dude is this little muscular security forces guy. I'm out there one morning by myself, you know, sitting out there waiting for everyone. I was watching this. And I heard him. He walked outside. He goes, all right, boys. He said, who's it going to be? Is it going to be us? Or is it going to be them? I'll tell you right now, it's not going to be us. It's going to be them. And he is facing imminent danger and is willing to say, if it's going to be me or you, it's going to be you. And we often do that in our happy hours and when we're getting together as a company, I will actually, in a brave heart type way, walk down the bar and give this out. And when I say, is it going to be us? Or them? Everyone says them. And that persona and that level of competition is what we bring to the market. I don't know his name to be able to give him that quote, but that was all day him. That was all day him. And it was all day going to be them. And it wasn't going to be them. It wasn't going to be us. And so we use that at Colossal as our little pump up speech. And so I give the quote to a very brave staff sergeant in the United States Air Force that every day shack it up to patrol an area that was very unforgiving and taken lives. And even in that matter, was not going to be outcompeted. It was not going to back down from anybody. So that's my point. No, I like that. I actually, that's good. I like it. That's the uniqueness, right? Of having different guests and different experiences. I think someone else is going to say, you know what? You know, I do something similar, but you know, my son, this is a tent. So they got to pump it up. They got to amp it up a little bit, right? It definitely embodies us, man. It was such a cool. I remember that moment like it was yesterday and he was putting on his flame retarded jumpsuit as he's screaming this going out the door. There's only like five people outside. It wasn't like he was trying to pump up the world. Oh, really? It's only five people. He himself is going to self pump it up. And he looked me right in my eyes as he put his on his things. He's like, yeah, I know what's just like, oh, yeah. You know, like it was crazy. But isn't that what Michael Jordan did? That is as that would Colby Bryant did. They went to a different, right? You pretend to be a different person. You do. You have to get a mindset. You're the change of mindset. Yes. And you have to get dialed in to do that and to do what we do, man. Think about it. Oh, I do get shut in your face. You get told, no, you're not good enough. You can't do it. Everyone's doing it. What makes you different? Right. You get these challenges every day that within the last 11 years that in the beginning, especially if it wasn't for that type of attitude that I learned from my dad and from those mentors, I would have said that I probably would have quit somewhere along the way. But because it's not who I am and it's not ingrained in me, that wasn't even a match. It was like, this is going to work or I don't know what else I'm going to do. So I'm just going to put it all into this. So definitely that mindset support. Let's go ahead and wrap up and share some parting words. We'll stay on just afterwards, but we'll go ahead and close out for today. Let people know some thoughts and ideas that you want to leave the people with. Sure. So first of all, this experience has been amazing for me. Being able to tell our story, being able to let you hear a little bit about us and the things we've run into, what's important about Colossus, what makes us different. My road and experience, you've got to give back. And whether it's mission 22, whether it's business, I can tell everyone listening to this is once you figure out those steps and you get to where you're going and even along the way, don't forget to give back and know that there's someone that got the door slammed in their face and someone that got told no and you're going to get told all of those things. But it's the mindset that you have and your ability to push through it and always know you've got to give back and try to be part of something greater than yourself. It's one of our core values that I love so much, strive to be part of something greater than yourself and as a business owner, in the beginning it's about yourself, but you're never going to be truly great until it's about everyone else's partners. No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you coming on today. You know, I love it. This is that's right. I thought it was awesome. No, it is. It's awesome. By the way, let people know how can they support mission 22? Sure. So you can go to mission 22's website. You just put in mission 22 and any browser. They have the ability for you to donate right there on the page. We're also going to be doing another event next October. So if you are a business partner or want to be involved, you're also going to have an opportunity at that time to donate as yourself, as your company. We also have marketing opportunities that we put you on the banner to show your support. So step one is going, put mission 22 in any browser, be able to give right then and there. The other is, you know, be part of our event in October. Yeah, and let us know as well. I mean, we support. We've helped support various guests that come onto our show. And and also, I mean, we have an incredible outreach. So again, this my email list is at 8000 small businesses and growing. My on my YouTube channel. We do about 30,000 views a month, 10 to 12,000 unique views a month of all small businesses. I don't tell funny stories. I don't have cat videos. It's all this hardcore government contracting far mentor, put us a joint ventures, all this stuff. You know, we we we bring it. We're like the GovCon source news. We we cure it all this information and then disperse it back out to the people that need it the most. And it's all free on YouTube. And so it's something that we do. Yeah, it's something that we do. And it's it's been great. And I take my time away. From my other obligations and I sit down. But again, I love this. I love having these engaging conversations with folks and meeting new people. And thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you for being on. You know, Anthony, I got to continue talking offline, but thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Stay tuned for any follow up from Anthony.