What happens when you combine relentless focus with long-term trust and bootstrapped grit? In this episode of Not Another CEO Podcast, David Politis chats with Sean Griffey, the co-founder and former CEO of Industry Dive, a digital media company that went from humble beginnings to a $500M+ acquisition.
Sean dives into how simplicity became his core operating principle, the creative strategies behind building a strong team, and why bootstrapping gave him the ultimate freedom. He also opens up about co-founder dynamics, the emotional challenges of scaling leadership, and finding clarity after stepping down.
Takeaways:
Start with Simplicity, Scale with Clarity: Sean shares how simplicity became a guiding principle across operations, sales, and product. By constantly asking “How can we make this easier?”, Industry Dive streamlined execution and scaled effectively across 30 different markets.
The Coffee Challenge That Built Culture: To foster cross-team collaboration, new hires were given a $50 coffee stipend and a list of quirky and strategic questions to ask people outside their department. This initiative not only built early camaraderie but also helped break down silos before they could form.
Bootstrapping with Intent (and $400K): While Industry Dive raised a small angel round, Sean considered the business bootstrapped and didn’t pay himself for 18 months. He talks about resisting early VC offers in favor of building profitably and why media businesses need time, not acceleration.
Strategic Exit Through Private Equity: Sean shares how the PE partnership offered strategic guidance, operating support, and true alignment on growth goals.
The Leadership Challenges No One Talks About: Sean reflects on the difficulty of maintaining culture and connection at scale, especially through the pandemic. He emphasizes the importance of transparency, weekly all-hands, and honest company-wide Q&As—even when the questions were tough.
Letting Go and What Comes Next: After stepping down as CEO, Sean is still adjusting. He shares how he's staying engaged and how he’s giving himself space to figure out what’s next with no pressure.
Quote of the Show:
“ There’s an incredible amount of time to be successful… you can enjoy it along the way too.” - Sean Griffey
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seangriffey/
Twitter (X): http://twitter.com/seangriffey
Company Website: https://www.industrydive.com/
Ways to Tune In:
Spotify:
Apple Podcasts:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7c6328f0-9b42-41db-8fe2-d263b4fbb261
Transistor: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/
#NotAnotherCEO #BusinessSuccess #IndustryDive
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:27 Key Strategies for Success at Industry Dive
02:31 The Coffee Challenge: Building Cross-Departmental Relationships
07:15 Maintaining Simplicity in Business Operations
10:19 Co-Founder Dynamics and Roles
16:34 Bootstrapping and Fundraising Journey
26:09 Private Equity Partnership Experience
29:00 Private Equity's Role in Scaling
30:57 Navigating the Pandemic with Private Equity
33:03 Alignment and Exit Strategy with Private Equity
37:51 Challenges and Team Alignment
47:42 CEO's Reflections and Future Plans
51:03 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
58:29 Outro
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Sean: We as a company can't be afraid to ask hard questions. Like that's our, that's literally our job. And so I will answer any question you guys have the guts to ask.
[00:00:35] David: Today's guest is a visionary leader in the digital media industry, particularly in B2B media and publishing. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Industry dive, a digital media company that publishes business news and original analysis for 16 million executives in 30 markets. Under his leadership industry, dive consistently ranked as one of the fastest growing [00:01:00] private media companies in the us. They won all kinds of best Places to Work awards, and they built an amazing business that was bootstrapped for a long time in 2022. Industry Dive was acquired by Informa for over $500 million. Please welcome co-founder and CEO former CEO of industry Dive Sean Griffey.
[00:01:21] Sean: Thanks for having me here. Dave. Been excited about this.
[00:01:23] David: I'm very excited. So let's go right outta the gates.
[00:01:27] First question, what is the one thing that you did big or small ad industry dive that had the biggest impact? And you'll do again if you're CEO, of another company in the future? I.
[00:01:35] Sean: Well, I, I, I'm gonna cheat and quickly go with two things, right? One, one of the big things which. We had a hyper focus on keeping things simple. And you know, even before I knew it, one, one of the things that we always tried to do was how do we make this product simpler? How do we make our messaging simpler?
[00:01:54] How do we make the processes that drive the business simpler? And, and I really think that if you [00:02:00] spend. You know, more of your time thinking about that, the operation and the execution becomes much easier. And that's like really what, what the biggest risk for most of these companies is in, in the execution, right?
[00:02:14] And simplicity clear clears clarifies and, and clears the mission for everyone so they know what they're doing. So, so that was one. The, the smaller one that I didn't realize the impact it would have is. Whenever someone joined, every single person that joined the company, the first thing we did was we gave them a $50 gift certificate to a local coffee shop and a list of 12 questions about the company and people in the company.
[00:02:47] And we said you have to take people out to coffee that aren't within your department. It can't be anyone on your team. It can't be anyone in your department, but you have to take people out to coffee and find out [00:03:00] the answers to these questions. We called it the coffee challenge. And then at the, you know, after a couple weeks, they've been in the company, two weeks have been in the company.
[00:03:07] In the company meeting, we'd ask them to, you know, introduce themselves, say who they took to coffee, and then answer one of the questions. And. What the real value of that was. It got the teams to, to look outside of their own department, build relationships across the company. Right. And we were just trying to have fun and, and have people feel part of the team, but it really gave someone an editorial, a contact in the sales team or in the ops team or the finance team and vice versa.
[00:03:37] And that had real value to us at different times.
[00:03:42] David: I lo the coffee challenge. I like that. Did you do that like from the beginning or only as you Kind of as you got bigger.
[00:03:51] Sean: Uh, you know, it was probably about 20 people when we started it, so it was, it was early.
[00:03:56] David: very early. That's
[00:03:57] Sean: Yeah. But, but you know, the funny thing is, we're a bootstrap [00:04:00] business. We got to 20 people. It felt like we were getting big, you know? And so we're like, Hey man, there's 20 people here. Like we, we've got the 28th person coming in.
[00:04:09] You know, like, they, like, let's make 'em, you know, meet people. So
[00:04:13] David: And were you in in in office culture? Was everyone in in the office?
[00:04:17] Sean: in the early days we were though, you know, we have a a hundred plus journalists, right? You can't. You, if you want people to cover in each industries, you gotta allow 'em to live anywhere, right? You can't expect experts on 30 markets to all be located in one city. So, so we always had a healthy remote culture.
[00:04:38] It certainly, you know, over the last couple years had we spread spread out significantly. You know, when we sold industry dive, we had offices in London and in Bangladesh, and people all over the world.
[00:04:51] David: Got it. And, and, and give me like, just what are some of the examples of the questions? I, I like this a lot. I feel like there's like a really good [00:05:00] tactical thing that people can take. Like what kinds of things would you have in, in those
[00:05:05] Sean: you know, it, it was some of it was a mix about the business, right? Like who are the target readers of Utility Dive, but some of it was name three people who joined Industry dive full-time as former interns. And so it would be a mix of sort of people and sort of jokes, you know? And, and, and one of the things that we did in the early days when there was seven of us in one room is we, we fought over what the all time greatest album was.
[00:05:33] Right. You know, and, and so it was like, the question was like, what, what was the, you know, greatest album of all time as determined, you know, here. So there, there were all those kinds of things. It was a mix of make people laugh.
[00:05:47] David: for lo fork lore
[00:05:49] Sean: Exactly.
[00:05:50] David: the, yeah. Wow. I, I really, you know, the cross departmental thing is something that it took me a while to appreciate. [00:06:00] Even in a small company, how siloed you know, if you're an engineer or you're a salesperson, even in a small company, you don't really know each, I mean, why would you work with
[00:06:12] Sean: Yep.
[00:06:13] David: you know, generally speaking.
[00:06:14] And so I, I like that. And it's very powerful when you do that because people find out what the other teams are. Do you know, I, I, I had this experience at one point where it was like. had an engineer doing support, which a lot of people do at their companies to have like that empathy. And he sat with the support team and I remember afterwards he said, oh my God, like what they do is CR is amazing.
[00:06:38] Like they are like our heroes, you
[00:06:40] Sean: Yep.
[00:06:40] David: And they, they never really appreciate that until they go through it. So anyway, I, that's a,
[00:06:45] Sean: It, it,
[00:06:45] David: challenge
[00:06:46] Sean: it, it's, it's so hard to break the silos and keep 'em broken, but when, when you do, people don't view it as, Hey, that's this team's problem. They view it, this is our problem. Right. You know, when, when you say [00:07:00] like, oh, finance can't get inventory data, you know, bookings data from whatever, like, well that's, that's finance problems.
[00:07:06] If someone in ops says, actually, that's all of our problems and I can solve it 'cause I'm friends with 'em and I'm connected with 'em and, and I see more how this impacts us.
[00:07:15] David: On the simplicity front, I wanna, tactically how do you I, I am I think things can get outta control pretty quick, you know, in terms of working on things that, projects that don't make sense to the business. Hiring roles that don't make, having meetings that don't make sense. Like how tactically do you keep it? S simple.
[00:07:38] Sean: yeah, I mean, I, I, I also have to give credit to you, one of my co-founders, like he, he was the one that really sort of opened my eyes about driving this and did the rest. I mean, I, I think for I. You know, for different parts of the business, you know, for our sales team, we would stop and say like, Hey, the, the pitch decks have gotten too big and too [00:08:00] unwieldy.
[00:08:00] Like, how do we take this, our message down to, you know, fewer bullet points, but clearer messaging? How do we think of it that way? We would, we would stop and, and say with the processes, like, you know, it, it'd be very deliberate of. Of let's spend a day thinking about other ways to do this, easier ways to do this.
[00:08:20] And you know, particularly in the early days, we'd stop and say, okay, we're spending a lot of time creating these contracts or spending a lot of time, you know, sending this. How do we make this easier? And there's no magic bullet or one way to do it. It's just being deliberate about it. Right. You know, if, if you had to say, I, if I had explained this to someone, how would I explain it to 'em now?
[00:08:42] How would I make it easier for someone new to understand it? And as soon as you say, how would I make it easier? You figure out ways to like figure out, make it easier.
[00:08:50] David: So you're just basically constantly asking that
[00:08:53] Sean: Exactly.
[00:08:54] David: comes up, you're saying, is this the easiest way to do it? Is this the easiest way to explain it? Is this, and you're just constantly [00:09:00] bringing that
[00:09:00] Sean: Absolutely.
[00:09:02] David: Do did you have to do that as the co-founders did that ever? did it become a thing that everyone was just like, sit in meetings and, you know, the, the sales person or the marketing would just say, can we make it easier?
[00:09:15] How do we make, you know, did it become indoc? Like in the, in the, everywhere in the
[00:09:19] Sean: I, I think it did, and we didn't even have to say it, you know, and, and in, in reflection, I think part of what did this is we operated in 30 markets, right? You know, we we're creating news and information for people in the electric utility space, in the waste and recycling space in biopharma healthcare food and beverage.
[00:09:38] And so part of us trying to keep it simple was. If we're doing this in one industry, we've gotta do it 29 more times. Right? And so that, that is sort of a little bit of what drove it is hey, the, the product set has to be the, you know, we want it to be the same across 30 times. We want the tech stack to be the same 30 times [00:10:00] we want, like we, we want to drive everything down into.
[00:10:03] Simple and standard arrest. That's how we become efficient. And so I think that focus was something that everyone did over time. I think the keep it simple was something, in the beginning we talked about a lot more, and then that just became the norm.
[00:10:18] David: Hmm. mentioned your co-founder there. How many co-founders did you have?
[00:10:24] Sean: There were, there were three of us total. So and you know, I, I stopped and, and thought about us the other day. I mean, we worked together for 20 plus years and I got incredibly fortunate to, to work with two people who. You know, you, you, you hear the horror stories of co-founders, right? And arguments and the, and the, the rest.
[00:10:45] You know, I never had to worry about their intentions or what they're doing. I mean, there, there were times that we didn't agree on something, but it was very few and we were always aligned on the end goal which was pretty fortunate.
[00:10:59] David: [00:11:00] How did you meet each other in the first place?
[00:11:02] Sean: You know, we were at another small business that you know, we joined and, and I joined that other small business and there were, you know, I think I was about the 10th person there. And they were, the two of them were already there, so they were veterans. And I came in as person number 10. And, and that was something that we grew and sold to a private equity platform.
[00:11:23] Uh, and ran, you know, the found, the original founder left and we ran the business for the private equity firm and, and. Over time, we said, Hey, there's opportunities to do a similar business, but a little bit differently. And you know, and, and this would be more fun to do for ourselves. And so, so we branched off in 2012 the three of us and launched industry Dive.
[00:11:48] David: And how, how did you decide when you're, I, I think the co-founder dynamic is don't get that right.
[00:11:57] Sean: Yep.
[00:11:57] David: mean, it, it, it'll derail the, the [00:12:00] company and even if you have the best idea and everything, it just, it starts messing up cap tables and start, I mean, creates obviously all kinds of different drama. How did you get aligned on roles? How, how'd you get aligned on equity split? Like how was that, like right away everyone knew like, Sean's gonna be the CEO, this person. Like, was that right away or, or did you have to work through that?
[00:12:22] Sean: You know so, uh. That that was a right away thing for us, and it's partly that we had been working together for so long. We also have in incredibly complimentary skills, right? So I was ru you know, running the business, CEO you know, one of my co-founders, the Chief Revenue Officer, and came from the sales and revenue side of the business and, and is just fantastic at that.
[00:12:49] And the other was a CTO, you know, and, and developer and, you know, very clearly had those skill sets. So, so we could. Divide the business up and say, [00:13:00] here's, here's where we are. We, we jointly worked on product and strategy in the early days, and what are we doing and where, where do we need to get better?
[00:13:09] But there was definitely areas of expertise where we came in and said like, no, you've gotta do this part. I've gotta do this part. You take the lead on this and, and having that. You know, just provides so much leverage when you say, here's someone I really trust who shares a vision for me, and I know they have this big part of the business.
[00:13:28] I'm here to help, but they're also experts at this. That, that was just like, great.
[00:13:33] David: And you, so you basically knew each other. If I'm my math, it's like seven years or 6, 7, 8 years or something before
[00:13:41] Sean: Exactly.
[00:13:42] David: the business.
[00:13:43] Sean: Yeah. Seven plus years. So
[00:13:45] David: So
[00:13:45] Sean: we.
[00:13:46] David: a dating, that's a lot of
[00:13:47] Sean: It's a lot of dating. I mean, we were, you know, we were engaged, you know, dating and then engaged for a long time.
[00:13:53] David: And did everyone stay with the business for the whole time until you were sold in 22?
[00:13:58] Sean: we did, we [00:14:00] did. So, yeah, it was you know, 13 years together and the whole, the whole runs through, through a lot of, you know, as, I mean, as you know, as a builder you get some ups and downs there. But it's, you know. Would start another business with the two of 'em today.
[00:14:18] David: so I, I, this, this, you, you scaled the business. Quite a bit. We're gonna talk about the bootstrapping, which I have a lot of questions about, but you scaled the business quite a bit I, I would say. I don't want to say like, but one, one piece of advice that founders get a lot is the team that kind of gets you here won't get you there.
[00:14:43] You know, and, and you, you hear the story many times. I have personally been through the story of having to replace the CRO, the CTO, the, you know, these people as the company scales. Um. Did you have to do that outside your [00:15:00] founder group, you know, or, or did you put that team together and Just that the whole team happened to be able to scale all the way, which, which is, that's many different stages of a company I.
[00:15:12] Sean: I mean, I, I think we, you know, we had to recognize where the business was outgrowing our skill sets and we brought people in to complement us, right? So the three of us stayed in the roles you know, in the early days. Uh, when we're bootstrapping, you know, I, I'm the NBA guy, I was the accountant, you know, I did the books and at some point it's like, no, I'm, I'm a fake CFO, I'm not a CFO.
[00:15:34] Right? And so we brought in A CFO to sort of run that. You know, a co-founder who's the CTO he is an incredible technologist and visionary and, and I think he's. One of the best to really bridge the business needs from the technology, you know, side. Like he really understood what, what the business was trying to do and how technology needed to play a role in it.
[00:15:59] And [00:16:00] knew our industry ups and downs, but we brought in and, you know, VP of engineering to manage the tech teams, right? So he, he wasn't gonna be the, you know, when we have three full Scrum teams running and the rest, like, he, he's not, he didn't want to be. And, and it honestly wasn't the best use of his time.
[00:16:15] To be the day-to-day manager of those folks. And so we brought in people like that and, and so I, I think as the business got bigger, we made our jobs smaller by filling in people who were better at the, at the parts of the business were weekend.
[00:16:30] David: Hmm, that makes sense. Um. I want to talk about the bootstrapping because so far on this show, I think I've had, you know, three or four people who've bootstrapped and those are some of the most popular episodes. I think it's also becoming something that more and people are looking at doing.
[00:16:49] I, I think as like from a trend perspective right now. So I just want to, from the beginning when you were the, the three of you were starting the company, did you say to each other, [00:17:00] we are going to bootstrap this business?
[00:17:02] Sean: Well, it was a, it was a mixture of both. I mean, we, we did I'll say we, we raised 400,000 in angel money. And it, it's a little, it was a little more than, you know, friends and family. It was, you know, local professional angels. But not, you know, not you know, VC firms or, or sort of the rest. I mean, these, these were, you know, individuals.
[00:17:29] We also, you know, I, I saved for a year and a half 'cause I knew I wasn't gonna pay myself for a year. Right. And I took,
[00:17:36] David: Hmm.
[00:17:37] Sean: took the last year we, we gave our prior company you know, a year's notice that we were gonna leave and do this. It was about like nine months. And we offered 'em a chance to invest, but we also, you know, knew that they needed time to build a team around us.
[00:17:55] And so we just said if we stay to the end and we earn our bonus, I'm gonna live [00:18:00] off that bonus for a year, right? And so we didn't pay ourselves for the first probably 18 months of this. Like we we worked really hard. We saved all the money that we could to get there. Raised, you know, 400,000, but used that into hiring some early, early folks and kind of went from there.
[00:18:21] David: And so, so you. did you go out to fundraise post that 400,000 investment? Or, or, you know what I'm like, or was that like, we're taking 400,000, we're not taking salaries for 18 months and we're just gonna bootstrap this. Like, you know, men mentality wise, like what was
[00:18:39] Sean: You know, we, we, so we started having conversations with VC firms and, and we were, we were looking to raise. I, I will say the early indications were very much, you know, like we were starting a B2B media company targeting the electric [00:19:00] utility industry at a time when Buzzfeed was getting hundreds of millions of dollars to do social right.
[00:19:05] And so the media investors sort of looked at us and said, you're doing digital lead generation in the waste and recycling and utility industries and like, so. We, we knew, like we, we recognized early on it was gonna be a hard a hard road. We also got some sort of, you know, not firm but preliminary term sheets from folks and we just thought, wow, this, doesn't recognize where the business is and if we can hold on for another 12 months.
[00:19:43] This business will look a lot different and we can go raise then on entirely different terms. And so we took on a little bit of debt you know, and support from our angels. And when we got to the point, 12 months later, the [00:20:00] business had grown enough that we were throwing off cash and we decided we don't like, why, why do we need to raise, you know, why do we need to bring in a VC firm, raise a bunch of money?
[00:20:10] When the business is cashflow positive and we can invest, like we're investing money back into the business at that point. And so we kind of you know, a little bit, luckily and a little bit intentionally skipped the whole VC standpoint. And got to the point where, you know, we had healthy EBITDA margins, the business was growing.
[00:20:32] You know, 20, 30% annually. And we got it to the, you know, I always say in, in our industry, you want to be sort of north of 20 million, top line, 5 million EBITDA, and then the private equity guys really get, start to get excited about you. Right? And so we got to that point and skipped right to private equity.
[00:20:52] David: And. What would you have done differently if you were [00:21:00] able to raise, you know, if you had gotten a good term sheet you were able to raise, what do you think you would've done differently in the business? Anything.
[00:21:07] Sean: You know maybe, I mean, I, I think there's like a part of this is you have to recognize where, where you are and the rest. I, I was always One of these guys pushing for our business to be profitable. Like, I just like, you know, like I, I just sort of said like this, this is to be self-sustaining. Like we need to be profitable.
[00:21:30] We need to like be able to do the rest. And so I don't know if I might have had a hard time with the VC mentality of like, no, no, no, go big. Let's lose a bunch of money for the next four years and sort of scale this. And, and I honestly think, you know, in some industries software that probably makes a lot of sense.
[00:21:49] In the media industry, I don't know if VC's actually the right financial vehicle for it, because in the early days the most [00:22:00] important thing for a media company is to build an audience and, and to build a real audience, not sort of a traffic from a social network or fly by SEO. It's to build people who have an affinity with your brand and, and you.
[00:22:15] And that's a little bit like pregnancy and you can't hurry it, right? And so I think there's this misalignment where VC comes into media industries and tries to accelerate something that needs organic time for itself. And so that more than anything, I think was what we got really lucky with, is we didn't, we didn't hit these, you know, artificial constraints where we're trying to grow a, you know, grow an audience.
[00:22:41] And what you end up growing is traffic, but not. like loyalists.
[00:22:45] David: Hmm. That is a really, that is a really interesting point. It makes sense. Like from a media perspective, if you were an investor like you, you need [00:23:00] volume of. Followers or audience or whatever it is. And, and you can spend to get it to your point. But that's, that's not gonna be real. Like, that's not, and I, get that I get
[00:23:12] Sean: it's a sugar high, you know, it's a total sugar high that doesn't last, and, and you need to really kind of have the balanced diet.
[00:23:20] David: And that just doesn't wor, I mean, that is not in the venture model really, you know, like, that, that doesn't make sense, you know, for, for their model. Um. Do you, what is your opinion? You know, new person, new company? I'm sure people reach out to you, founders, CEOs, you know, new company getting off the ground. How would you talk through with them, kind of the, the, the, should they go raise a million dollars today at a, you know, 10 million post and, you know, get right on the hamster wheel? Should they try to build profitably for as long as possible? Should they, you know, what, what, what is your, do you have a philosophy on that, you know, that you [00:24:00] would say to the next generation?
[00:24:02] Sean: I mean, I think it, it depends a little bit on the business and the opportunity, right? Like, I'm not gonna be the one that says. Oh, you can't do this. I mean, clearly if you're doing something, you're gonna go, you know, build something that requires manufacturing and the rest, right? You're gonna need capital.
[00:24:17] You know, if, if you've got equipment and the rest, like you're gonna have to raise money. 'cause you just can't bootstrap, you know, solar panels. Right. You know, it's like I, you know, whatever it is. And so I, I think you've gotta be realistic of the business. I, I think the, the thing that I caution people all the time, I, you know.
[00:24:35] Uh there, there is a, a whole world of people who've raised a lot of money and built businesses that should be a double, but because of their cap table, they're underwater the whole time, and it's the rest, you know, it's, it's kind of a mess. And so I, I think I, I, I think one of the healthier things in sort of this environment is the last couple years.
[00:24:59] I mean, you [00:25:00] know. Clearly, you know, five, 10 years ago, everyone was just celebr, you know, celebrating the raise and it was like the, I raised money. Congratulations. And the rest. And I think we've, we've not completely gone away from that, but we're in a much healthier place where people realize the raise is just a, you know, a step in the process.
[00:25:18] It's not the outcome. And saying I'm working with a, you know, tier one VC firm doesn't mean you're successful. It's just a step. And so I think we're, we're much healthier there
[00:25:29] David: Hmm.
[00:25:30] Sean: than we were, you know, as a, you know, maybe, maybe a decade ago. But I, I will tell people, I mean, particularly in the media industry, you know.
[00:25:39] I would bootstrap this as long as you can. And then I'd bootstrap it for a little bit longer. Uh, and then I would try I would, I would go see if I needed money from there. And, you know, the, the druthers and clearly it was something that worked for us. Uh, but if I had to do it over again, I'd do everything I could to skip the [00:26:00] vc, go bootstrap to private equity, use private equity as the growth accelerator and, and go from there.
[00:26:08] David: Hmm. So pri from a private equity perspective what year was that? So you started in 2012. What year was, did you engage with the private equity
[00:26:18] Sean: 2019.
[00:26:19] David: Got it. So seven years in and. When you did that transaction, what was your experience with the pri? It sounds to me, I mean obviously it was successful financially, but you know, there are mixed reviews on what it's like, you know, going from a founder, a especially of a bootstrap company, like a founder of a bootstrap company to, to working for private equity, essentially. What was your experience there?
[00:26:50] Sean: Yeah, I mean obviously it was you know, it was a great experience and I, I think you know, there's a couple things. O [00:27:00] one, I, I think I ended up just working with, you know, one of the best private equity firms out there, you know, FAL Furious Capital outta Charlotte sort of mid-size companies just incredibly pragmatic.
[00:27:15] And fair people. And they have a mentality, you know, where they, they might be the smartest people in the room, but they certainly never act like it. Right. And I think there's like, you know, some of the bad, some of the bad private equities, I think there's a lot of people I. Uh, and I'm, I, you know, I went to business school and have an MBA and so I say this, but there's a lot of people who go to business school, get an MBA, go into private equity and never run a business, and then think that they know how to run the business better than the teams running the business.
[00:27:42] Right? And so the private equity company we ended up with never acted that way even though they all had real operating experience. As well. And we're incredibly sharp guys, so I, I think that foundation of the right partners [00:28:00] really served us well. It also came at a point where my co-founders and I really knew that the business had the potential to accelerate.
[00:28:12] Like we, we went from the, hey, this could be a nice business that's rolling off cash and, and we you know, we can continue to grow it to. No, this business really needs more than what we can do right now to grow. And, and I, I was a little naive actually. I, I was before we, you know, hooked up with private equity, I, I was starting to talk to lenders about how much debt we could raise on our own.
[00:28:38] And I did all this stuff to get ready for it, you know, in terms of getting audits and quality of earnings and the rest, which only helped us. Get a deal done. But you know, it turns out that the lenders won't lend a business money. They'll lend a private equity company more money with the exact same asset for some reason than they will the business [00:29:00] itself.
[00:29:00] But I went to go say like, I'm gonna raise money to, you know, we're gonna go raise money to be more aggressive. And then like, really disappointed at what someone would lend us. And so we're like, well, this isn't gonna work. And, you know, private equity started showing up at Sirius at that point.
[00:29:14] David: And so when you say, you know, they, they kind of helped you, you know, in this next stage of the journey. Is it like. Did they know how to scale hiring better than you? Did they know how to scale the audience building? You know, what, what, what were the things that they, you know, were they just was it more about the financial you know, and, and of the company?
[00:29:43] Like where, where do you think they added the most value?
[00:29:46] Sean: Well, I mean, I, I think it was a couple different things, right? So there was an operating partner that they, they brought in to sort of be on our board and, and help create a thesis of where companies could go in the industry. [00:30:00] And we actually, you know, I always said that we were contrarians in the market, right?
[00:30:06] And like, you know, we, we were trying to do electric utility when Buzzfeed was going social, right? Like we were contrarians in media. Uh, until we met the operating partners and Fal Furious, who had a same vision of us and, and saw it in a slightly different way, but the Venn diagram was like 80% overlap.
[00:30:23] And so it was really nice to get a thought partner for someone who had built businesses and sold businesses, not doing exactly what we did, but doing tangential parts of it and helping us say like, here's how these tangential pieces can compliment and help the business. And so that was really great. They certainly helped us when we did acquisitions.
[00:30:42] You know, it was nice to have a team of private equity analysts to run down due diligence and to deal with the banks and do some of those things that we just weren't built to do. Like we, we just weren't staffed to do some of that. And then there was, you know. V very minor [00:31:00] things that I don't know if I would've thought of, but that I learned, you know, when the pandemic came and I mean, it's like, what, today's five years, you know, five year anniversary from the pandemic hit.
[00:31:10] Right. I remember, you know, we were in good shape. We had a ton of cash on the balance sheet, like we thought we were gonna be good. But the, the private equity partner, the senior partner called me. And just said, Hey, you need to pull your entire line of credit today. And I'm like, nah, we've got a ton of Catholic.
[00:31:32] What are we doing? He's like, no, no, no. We don't know if the line of credit's gonna be there in a week. You know, the bank can cancel this line of credit, like go, go get the money. The worst thing we're gonna do is pay some interest and then put the the money back in. The worst thing is, is when you need the money, the line of credit's gone.
[00:31:48] And so it was like little practical stuff like that, that I don't, you know, I, I was you know, just hadn't seen some of that stuff. And so they could step in where I had blind [00:32:00] spots and just say like, really think you should do this. And that was incredibly valuable.
[00:32:06] David: Hmm. One of the things
[00:32:08] Sean: I.
[00:32:08] David: I think I see people that I've talked to who've sold to private equity, my own experience. There's a different kind of alignment I think, financially. I, you know, from venture, you know, at least in my experience, again, in all the conversations I've had, like people say, the, the private equity firm says, Hey, we're gonna acquire you for this amount of money and for us to be successful as a, as a firm, we need to sell it for y amount of money in Z number of years.
[00:32:44] And it's like. I, I, which venture, I, you don't have that conversation with venture investors. They don't, they, they basically give you the money and say, get to as big as possible and return me as much money as possible. There's not, you don't even know what success the bar [00:33:00] is, you
[00:33:00] Sean: Yep.
[00:33:00] David: you don't. Whereas did you have that same experience?
[00:33:03] Sean: ab, absolutely. I mean, I think the alignment was you know, in, in part of the, they came in and they bought a majority of the company. And so we had a really nice outcome, right? Like, it, it, it was the, the business was a win at that point. So it, it, it then got to the point where we felt like we could be more aggressive, right?
[00:33:23] Like, I wasn't, I hadn't worked 18 months for no salary, for nothing. Like I had, I had taken money out of the business and it was safe, but they also. You know, let you roll over a significant portion of equity. Right? It, it wasn't, they, they didn't come in and buy 95% of it and you get 1% left. Right? You still owned a significant portion of equity there, and you knew that hey, they're, they're in a hurry.
[00:33:52] They have. Three to five years that they wanna hold this thing or three to seven, whatever the kind of term terms [00:34:00] are. And, and you know that hey, they're, they're, they're gonna want to be aggressive in the first couple years. Uh, and then they're gonna want to, you know, they're gonna want the business to look, you know, look, be ready for exit and outcome, you know a couple years later.
[00:34:17] And so you, you get really aligned on, you know, at the beginning, if you do this right, of what are the next two or three years gonna look like that get us here before you do the deal. Right? And you stop and say, like, you know, they come in and say like, we, we want, you know, we need, you know. We, we wanna do acquisitions and you come and say like, but actually I can get us most of the way there organically.
[00:34:40] And then we talk about like, okay, what does that mean? Right? And what's the balance of how much of this is an acquisition strategy and integration? How much of this is organic growth? What do we, what are the things that we want to add so that the next buyer is gonna look at this and say, this is an incredible business.
[00:34:55] It still has more room to grow, right? And you can come to that alignment very early, and then it's just [00:35:00] execute against it, you know? And the business is mature enough that you're not sort of making it up and pivoting on a day like a, a yearly basis or the rest, right? Like everyone knows like the, there's, this is mature enough business.
[00:35:13] We kind of know where we can go from here.
[00:35:15] David: Hmm. So you, so that deal is 2019 and then 22 you end up selling the company to a public company in Informa. And. How was that pro like, was that a process that was led by the PE firm? Was that something that you led? Did you kind of have, you know, how, how long was that in the works? Can you talk a little bit about
[00:35:39] Sean: Yeah, I you know, the, the, I, I think what we saw, the, the business and, you know, this is. This was all public information kind of. So we were doing just under 30 million when we got with, with the private equity doing, you know, a hundred million say when we sold [00:36:00] three years later. And, you know, we had done some acquisitions, but probably added, you know, 15, 20 million of revenue through the acquisitions and the rest was sort of organic.
[00:36:10] David: Wow. Wow.
[00:36:11] Sean: And so, you know, we, we, we knew the, the. You know, it's a, it's a it was a combination of things where the business had really performed over the three years. The macro environment, you know, were, things were lining up for our business. Everything that we've been contrarian about, suddenly the pendulum swung back and this is what people wanted, right?
[00:36:36] And so I, I think we sort of knew that. Hey, the, the pendulum can swing again away from everything we're doing, you know? And so the, the market timing was like really sort of this is a, this is a great, and, and as much as you don't wanna, you know, try to time windows sometimes you can look up and say, this is a really good time for us.
[00:36:59] [00:37:00] And I think we were in agreement of there. You know, I, I think the, the great thing about the private equity, the, the one thing that, you know, they were majority owners. The one thing that they were very honest about when we were doing acquisitions, they'd say. We're not gonna do an acquisition unless you, Sean, and your co-founders are bought in.
[00:37:18] 'cause it's not gonna work unless you're bought in. And then the next phase of it, when it was time to sell, is like, well, I don't know. We might want to go, but if you think it's time to sell, we're gonna go, like, you know, we're going to go on there. And I mean, it was a, it was a discussion, but you know, it was a piece of is this the right time or not the right time?
[00:37:38] And they, they really gave us you know. Uh, more input than maybe, you know, you know, the cap table said we should have,
[00:37:48] David: Hmm. what was, throughout the entire journey, what was the biggest challenge you ever faced at the [00:38:00] company and, and how did you overcome that?
[00:38:03] Sean: You know, listen, like I, I think I. There are business challenges you have at times, right? There's customer challenges you have at times, there's, you know, the product, things and the rest. But, but really, you, you look back at at the things and more often than not, the most important thing to do. Is to get the teams aligned and working, you know, well, and to make sure that the culture and the people are you know, as, as strong as they can be.
[00:38:42] And I, I don't, you know I'm really proud of what we built as a company and the culture and the teams, but I don't think it's always, you know, an a I think there are times for every business just naturally, I. Things slip and you have to like reinforce with the teams and the [00:39:00] folks what's important and the rest.
[00:39:01] And when I look at the biggest challenges, it's how do we help the team navigate, you know, the world around us in the pandemic and the how do we navigate and think about. Different issues that are going on in terms of, you know, in office or remote, or how do we think about when, you know inevitably key people leave and there's folks are demoralized, or when the company, you know, more often when I'm, the company grows so fast that people.
[00:39:33] You know, like we weren't hiring fast enough to support the teams and they start getting burnt out and they don't see at the light at the end of the tunnel. And so, you know, those were the, I think as the CEO, those are the hardest things, like making sure the team feels supported and they are aligned and they understand where we're going and they understand our intentions and who we are and who we want to be and what we aspire to [00:40:00] be.
[00:40:00] You know, not just, you know as a business, but as a culture and a company. And so that, that is where I spend more of my time. I think the, the number one thing of how you navigate that, you know, for me I just tried to be incredibly transparent you know, with the teams as much as I could. And that, that was honestly, you know, I think for me, the hardest thing as the company got bigger.
[00:40:29] When it was hundreds of people across the globe, I don't think those, it wasn't as easy for those people to feel like they had a real relationship with me. They would see me on a Zoom every Monday for a monthly, like a weekly call, but I don't think they, you know, when, when there was 40 of us and we were in one big bullpen.
[00:40:50] Like, I think they could, they could, they, they truly believed what I was try, like what we were trying to do and, and who I am. And so that's the [00:41:00] hard, like that for me was the hardest thing is how do you convey that stuff when it's someone who's gonna only see you on a screen once a week.
[00:41:06] David: Hmm. Yeah. You know, the, the people. People is the big Right. Especially if you have a team of hundreds of people like that. That is, I think it all comes down to people issues. I, I actually feel like Covid was such a crazy moment because it really, with all the challenges that we have around people and managing people, and has been that case forever for leaders. That was like all of a sudden you had to be responsible for people's health wellbeing. Right? It was like this whole different dynamic while also running you had to run the company, you had to generate the revenue to be able to pay those people, but at the same time, you had to worry. I, I feel like that, I feel like literally 2020 to 20 [00:42:00] 23, 20, like 24, that that has to be the hardest. Period, I believe four CEOs than ever before in the world. I, I don't know how, you know, what I
[00:42:12] Sean: It, it.
[00:42:13] David: recessions, there's been this, but like the amount of things that occurred up, down, up, down, you know, real like health risks, you know, all the, I mean, I don't know that that's how I, that's how I feel, you know, that, that, that, that period has to be the hardest period for CEOs.
[00:42:33] Sean: I certainly I certainly agree, you know, and, and I think you see a lot of people. Now, you know, in the last couple years I, I've seen a lot of people that were, you know, CEOs that are kind of peer networks and stuff, and everyone's taken a step back, you know, and said like, you know, like, I need a break from this.
[00:42:53] 'cause it was a hard run and there's a you're absolutely right in, in that that more than any [00:43:00] period was like, you felt personally responsible for the wellbeing. Of people in ways that you didn't have to worry about before. Right. While at the same time, you know, the business is what gives you the flexibility and the, the opportunity to be taking care of folks in ways that you couldn't, you know, and just a, a challenging time for sure.
[00:43:24] David: So you mentioned, one of the things you mentioned was the weekly all hands that you did. Was that week? I mean, was that like every week from when you started the company Monday? All
[00:43:35] Sean: Uh, Monday. Yep. We, we do a quick 30 minute, sort of all hands talk about what's going on in the business. Introduce new people. Even when we were, you know, hundreds of people, we, we made every, and we, and, and we weren't doing the coffee challenge at one point, but we'd still make people introduce themselves and say one interesting fact about themselves and, and the rest, you know, in, in front of folks.
[00:43:57] And, and that was an alignment. We also [00:44:00] did you know, about three times a year, but not at a regular basis. I, I do a state of state sort of deep dive in the company. And the, the best part of that was I'd, I'd only talk for about 20, 30 minutes of, Hey, here's, here's how we're doing financially. I always shared the finances, like it was kind of important to me, like not to be one of those companies that said, here's where we are.
[00:44:25] And you know, like, like, like it's a secret how profitable we are, or not profitable, like we talk about it all the time, but also saying, here's the strategic priorities, here's what we're worried about. The rest. But then for about an hour and a half or two hours after that, I would take any question that someone would ask.
[00:44:43] And that live. Yeah, live. And, and, and people would send some in, in advance and I'd ask for 'em in advance and, but answer 'em. But I'd also take 'em live from anyone and. That I think was, [00:45:00] you know, it was always one of the more, I think people felt together after that. And for me, you know, we're a media company and there's, you know, I.
[00:45:09] A hundred plus journalists, and I always said to them is, if you're afraid to ask a, like we as a company can't be afraid to ask hard questions. Like that's our, that's literally our job. And so I will answer any question you guys have the guts to ask. And so some of 'em were like really challenging questions about the structure of the business.
[00:45:28] Some of them were someone's unhappy about something and would want to vent, and the question would be more about venting of where we are and the rest. But I, you know. We would tackle all of 'em at every time. And I felt like we just felt so much more aligned for the short period after those that we would do those types, types of things.
[00:45:50] I, I would leave them exhausted, right? 'cause you're on for three hours, two and a half hours, like feeling questions. But, but it was one of the, the better times in the [00:46:00] company.
[00:46:00] David: I tell people, I tell CEOs all the time, I've been really vocal about this, of the all hands, these three times, you know, a year, state of the company, the, the media, like the operating rhythm is probably the best tool you have as a leader. To drive alignment,
[00:46:23] Sean: Yep.
[00:46:23] David: people excited to answer. I love those. I mean the live, to answer those questions and let people have a to, to say those things like, and I think people who don't invest in that operating, which I was definitely one of those people early on, you're, it's, you're losing maybe your biggest channel to, to, to do those things.
[00:46:47] Sean: Absolutely. I, I couldn't agree more. And. And it's not enough just to do 'em. I mean, I think the thing for us that really helped, and maybe it was our cultural one, is we weren't giving corporate [00:47:00] answers back, right? Like, if I was giving jargon and half answers back and not answering the questions, I think it would've been really ineffective.
[00:47:11] And maybe you've done the exact opposite, right? Like if I, if I just said, and there were times where I said like, I can't actually can't answer that, but here's why I can't answer it. Or Here's when you can expect to know. But most of the time it was very much like I'm gonna give a plain English answer about why, why we're doing something.
[00:47:29] And that goes a long way with people. But if you come back and you spit out sort of consulting speak, you know, and not say anything in your answers that says something even worse to them. And so, yeah.
[00:47:42] David: You, so you, when did you step down Exactly.
[00:47:46] Sean: you know, my, my last day was right before the holiday breaks in this last year, so December 20th, 2024.
[00:47:53] David: And so since you've stepped down I. I dunno how to ask this [00:48:00] question, but having gone through it myself, I would like to ask it is how long do you feel like it took to actually decompress? Are you yet decompressed? Like, you know, was that, you know, you stepped down and like the next week you felt refreshed, like were you not even stressed or, you know, kind of like, what, what was that like?
[00:48:20] Sean: I am, I'm not there yet, if I'm being honest. I still I'm, I'm sleeping a little better, so that's like a good si, like a good sign. You know, the there were times, you know, over the years where. You'd turn over and wake up at 3:00 AM and then your brain would immediately turn on right? And it was like, well, I'm not, not going back to sleep now.
[00:48:42] That, that has changed. But I've been, you know, I've been busy in the two and a half, three months since then. I mean, I think one of the great things you spend 13 years at a business when you announce on LinkedIn that you're stepping down. Uh, a lot of people like reach out and [00:49:00] so I've been actually incredibly busy for the last two months.
[00:49:03] And having coffees and drinks and zoom calls with folks. And I'm doing, you know, like maybe three or four of them a day. So it hasn't, like, I haven't woken up and said like, I guess I'm golfing today yet. And we'll see what, we'll see when we get there. But slowly.
[00:49:20] David: do
[00:49:20] you, do you foresee starting another company in the future? You think that you're gonna do more investing and advising and, you know, what, what do you think will be
[00:49:29] next?
[00:49:30] Sean: I, you know what? I honestly not ruling anything out because I've seen people who are very certain of their answer and then they get nine months in and they completely change their mind on what it is. And so I, I want to be realistic that I don't know yet. If you ask me today, I don't think I'm going to I'm not gonna go back to the days where we built our own desks and you know, had to do those things.
[00:49:56] Like, I, I'm just not sure, you know I, [00:50:00] I'm just not sure I'm, I can, I'm have the energy to go back to that stage, right? Like the, I need to sign up for 15 year run to get something from the ground up to wherever. Right now I'm, I've started working with a couple of private equity companies that I really respect in the area and helping them look at deals and helping them with their portfolio companies that in some of the industries I have experienced.
[00:50:24] And so I've, I've joined some boards and I'm, I'm doing some of that and that, that sort of allows me to, to keep my fingers in it. But I, I, I think there's a chance at some point. I don't, I don't see the, I don't see it right now, but I think there's, I'm not gonna rule out the chance that someday, no.
[00:50:41] I, I have a good idea and I want to do something big and, and I'm gonna go find the, the next opportunity, or, or I see an opportunity and think, you know, there's something, there's a lot of meat on the bone and I really would be excited to, to kind of go after it. I just don't know.
[00:50:56] David: Hmm. Do you, you always [00:51:00] know that you were gonna be a CEO, A founder? Like, did you know, was that your dream, you know, growing up or did that just happen kind of through your experience?
[00:51:11] Sean: You know, I, I grew up, I was the first person in my family who didn't work for the government in some form. I. And I'm talking not just like my parents, but grandparents and the rest, you know, were in the military or Department of Energy or patent and trademark office, or CIA, like I was, I was, they were all, like, my whole family was government employees and so when I graduated college, I went to work for.
[00:51:36] Uh, but the time was Anderson Consulting and Accenture, and that was sort of like the, you know, do you really want to do this? That sounds incredibly risky, you know, from like my family set. And I you know, I thought that that was like, I thought for, for me, you know, I, I'm going to do something incredible and I'm gonna be like a senior manager at [00:52:00] IBM, you know, like, like a VP at IBM.
[00:52:03] That was my goals, and it, it really wasn't. Until I went back and got an MBA. And I know, you know, it's really popular online now to poo poo the value of MBAs, but for, for me, you know, one of the values of it was I was surrounded by people who were really thinking big about what they could do in their careers.
[00:52:25] And, and that honestly opened, opened my eyes for, I may be selling myself short on what I can do or should do because I, you know I'm arrogant enough to think like I'm just as smart as everyone. I'm just as capable of everyone. But I had, I had somehow limited what my, like, what I was going to do.
[00:52:48] And it wasn't until I was at a MBA school when all these people were thinking bigger. And I said to myself. Why am I not thinking bigger if they are? And that sort of changed my lens.
[00:52:58] David: I re, [00:53:00] you know I've had now a number of guests who have said to me this thing about being around other people. Like having somebody who was thinking bigger or showing them, you know, it, it's kind of interesting and, and people who didn't have it in their family, it comes later
[00:53:18] Sean: Yep.
[00:53:19] David: in life. But when, but they can remember like, oh, I saw this person do this, or I had exposure to this person.
[00:53:25] And when they showed me that, I started wondering, why can't I do that? And I, I think that's actually a really interesting, like, I, I didn't get an MBA. My, my feeling at least talking to the founders who have gotten MBAs, it's about the people more than it is like the coursework. You know? I don't think schools can keep up with this pace of change of businesses, especially entrepreneurship, but the people that exposure feels like that's what you're basically paying for and putting your time
[00:53:56] Sean: Uh,
[00:53:57] David: don't know. That's, that's what I
[00:53:58] Sean: yep. I mean, it, it's, it is [00:54:00] more of that than a, than anything else. Right. And it is at least for me, and, and it wasn't, you know, people talk about like, well, it's the network you're gonna lean on the rest of your life. Like, it's not even really that, it's not like I'm like. Oh, I need to go raise venture capital.
[00:54:13] Who, who, who from, you know, my MBA school is gonna lend me money. 'cause they're, I mean, like, it's money. They, they're like, let me, let me see your business plan. Right? Like, like they're just as likely to give it to anyone. But, you know, to, to me it was the sort of, you know, what I just said was. Wow. Like they're, they're gonna push you and inspire you to do interesting different things.
[00:54:38] And you know, you're gonna see that it's okay, but you're also gonna be like, I don't wanna be left behind kind of stuff. You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm competitive enough, right? That I'm like, well, I, I need to do something cool too. And so all of that kind of plays into it.
[00:54:54] David: Do you did you have like a mentor or some kind of a role model? You know [00:55:00] what, like earlier in your career, you know, and through your career or as CEO of industry dive, like did you have a person that that kind of served
[00:55:07] Sean: You know I think at different times in my life I've had different ones. I will say one of our angel investors uh, was a bit of a investor and he, he was. Just a, a great guy in the, the, and he, he subsequently passed. But he, he was just one of these guys that had these views of, he, he, he immediately loved what we're doing.
[00:55:34] He loved unsexy industries and he loved he loved doing things that other people wouldn't do any he loved the scrappiness of. You know companies that were had sort of the bootstrap mentality and weren't saying like, oh, I got a bunch of money. Let's go see the nicest offices we can get. Right?
[00:55:55] Like he he did all of that. He had all of these, like, you know, his name was Mark [00:56:00] title bomb. We had all these mark isms where he would, you know, give, give to you all the time. And I still hear some of 'em in my head, you know uh, about this stuff. And so I, I think. Ha. Having him cheer lead us, I think was incredibly important.
[00:56:15] Where we were,
[00:56:16] David: Yeah. Knowing everything you know today you know, having all the experiences that you've had, if you could go back to the very beginning of your career before you started Anderson and you give yourself one piece of advice, what would that be? I.
[00:56:33] Sean: it would have nothing to do with business. Right. I, I would tell myself, you can afford the time and money to travel more. You can afford to take a two week vacation. You know, I kind of, I, I, I think I. I was in my late thirties before I took two weeks off. I took a one week honeymoon, you know, in that [00:57:00] uh, just incredibly driven, you know, I didn't go on big trips because I thought like the, you know, like I didn't wanna spend the money on those things.
[00:57:09] And so I, I think like, I, I would only tell myself that you know, there's an incredible amount of time to be successful. You've got all the time in the, like, you've got a lot of time to be successful. Um. You know, you can enjoy it along the way too.
[00:57:24] David: Hmm. Really good. is. No one has said that yet, and that is really good advice. I, I took a 36 hour honeymoon. You know, I I know exactly what you're, I, I, I think that entire, I mean, basically the first, I mean, 20 years of my career, I didn't, I didn't do the travel and didn't, you know,
[00:57:46] Sean: Yeah.
[00:57:47] David: because it was always like, I'll do a three day trip here.
[00:57:50] I'll do a two day because, because how can I leave for a week or two weeks? I, I think it's. Yeah, that's really good advice. I actually think that [00:58:00] when you do those things now reflecting, like, it, it, it actually makes you better because when you come back, you have a different perspective. Let's say, you know, because you've taken the step out, you've gone out of the weeds for even a week, you know, you can come at it from a different angle.
[00:58:17] So I, I really like that.
[00:58:20] Sean: It is, it is amazing how I would push other people to do it, but would never do it myself,
[00:58:24] David: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. If people wanna get in touch with you, connect with you, what, what is the best way? Is it,
[00:58:34] Sean: the these days LinkedIn is the best way. So Sean Griffy, LinkedIn.
[00:58:38] David: great. Awesome. Sean, I really appreciate this. I, I, I enjoyed this conversation a lot. I'm happy that that. You know, we've gotten to meet each other and get to know each other. So I, I, appreciate you doing this with
[00:58:53] Sean: Well, thanks for having me. This is a tremendous amount of fun.
[00:58:56] David: Awesome, awesome. Well, I hope everyone enjoyed if you [00:59:00] did, please share this out with your networks and we will see you for the next episode of not
[00:59:04] Sean: I.
[00:59:04] David: podcast.
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