A Conversation with Elliot Ross of Taxi for Email -> Sparkpost -> MessageBird

Designer to agency owner to SaaS entrepreneur to acquisition — Elliot Ross has lived the journey fantasized by many. Taxi for Email, the London SaaS that Elliot co-founded, was acquired by a US email provider — SparkPost — which was acquired by Amsterdam-based MessageBird at nearly the same time! In this candid and informative conversation, he shared some of the ups and the downs of the trip. He provides a wealth of modest-but-sage advice. Build a solution to a problem. Realize that acquisition is a process involving hard work, without a predictable outcome. London is not Silicon Valley is not Amsterdam. Get a really really good lawyer! Super fun conversation with a smart, down-to-earth guy.

AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:09] Matthew Dunn: good morning or good afternoon slash evening from my guest Elliot Ross. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn hosted the future of email marketing. My guest today, Elliott Ross, who I've been trying to Badger onto the show for a few months now. Uh, SparkPost, uh, action, rocket, uh, taxi free mil Elliot.

[00:00:27] Elliot Ross: Hey, how's it going?

[00:00:29] Yes, no. Yeah. Okay. I, uh, for somebody who works in email, I'm not very good at actual like personal emails. So yeah, I apologize for not being hard to get hold of, but yeah, well, you know,

[00:00:41] Matthew Dunn: anybody in the email space was inbox is not

[00:00:44] Elliot Ross: right. Oh, it's horrendous. The amount of stuff that, the thing I find. So we work, I try to buy stuff for my clients and I can support the cause and all that kind of stuff.

[00:00:55] But the trouble is our clients also send us proofs of everything. So like I just get a ton of email and I'm like, I can't work out if it's personal to the thing I ordered or like just a random pre for some random thing. So yeah. It's hard working in email.

[00:01:11] Matthew Dunn: I mean, yeah, what's it, what's it. The plumber's wife's or sink has always been, yeah, something like that.

[00:01:18] Well, just, just for, just for orientation, for people, especially people who are listening, uh, I want to do a recap and see if I get it right about what I know about your career in email. Um, you're a founder of an actual, um, studio action rocket, right. And you also, then co-founded a taxi for email, uh, high-end email.

[00:01:41] My advice, SparkPost SparkPost acquired by MessageBird, which is how you're known evangelist for SparkPost

[00:01:48] Elliot Ross: MessageBird. Correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And a lot of, uh, a lot of random things on the way, like when people talk about that kind of overnight success or whatever, like, you know, 20 years of 20 years

[00:01:59] Matthew Dunn: old and I had success, but you know, your background was originally in design, is that correct?

[00:02:05] Elliot Ross: Yeah, so I like, yeah, all the way back to like being a teenager, like I was, I designed things and then I ended up working in different ad agencies. I old school ad agencies, kind of the tail end of like mad men era, I guess. Well, I don't know. It's maybe a stretch to say like the early, early noughties was still at, you know, mad men, but like, definitely like that era of like.

[00:02:28] Agencies being like, oh crap, there's digital now. And we've got to work out how to do it. I, so from then on really,

[00:02:37] Matthew Dunn: I'm going to tease you and provoke the people who are listening on the podcast. I've got, I've got Johnny, Ivy's younger brother here

[00:02:47] on the show. Uh, as a, as a designer, I do you still, do you still find time to, you know, to create hands-on visual?

[00:02:57] Elliot Ross: Uh, not as much as I like to, like, it's hard, like, because so actual market is like 20 people, um, taxi, like there's still bits of design work, but now we have like designers, especially now with joined SparkPost and, and, uh, and MessageBirds.

[00:03:12] So yeah, it's more narrowed, like being able to say like, Hey look, here's, here's the idea I'm thinking of. Yeah. Um, I'm not going to be. One of those clients. That's like, here's exactly what I want, but like his here's something, if you have something better than absolutely we'll run with it, but go work with it and see what we can do that that's about as much designed as I get to do anymore.

[00:03:36] But yeah. Kudos,

[00:03:38] Matthew Dunn: kudos to you for recognizing that boundary. I've got a, my background is arts and creative as well. And I'm the client from hell. Like I am just a client from hell, like Nope. Wrong. Nope. Sorry. RGB codes. Why did you use that? Like just nanny it's hard.

[00:03:57] Elliot Ross: It's so hard. Especially by, especially like growing a company like taxi, uh, grew from, I think more so in Texas, in actual market, it's actually not get, I basically just replicated myself over and over and hired more and more designers basically and stuff.

[00:04:14] Um, but, um, with, with taxi, like we started off with two people that became three after like a year or so. Then we kind of gradually hired a couple more over the years. And then we ended up with like 25, 30 people. But like, as the company grows, you know, me and will, co-found a taxi. Like we were doing everything like, you know, to the extent that I designed the front end, he decided the backend.

[00:04:40] Yeah. Gradually at night, the sort of concept of taxi as you need, like a design system, which is like an HTML template. So it's coded in email HTML. So I was doing those for clients as well. And like, and also trying to run the business and try to work out, like, how do you even do a business? Um, and in a SAS business, like everything is, there is no kind of, there is no limit in the way that an agency does have a limit.

[00:05:04] I think by, you know, an agency is essentially you hire a bunch of people and you can, and you can charge more for their time and you have some clients and whatever, right. Whereas there is no limit to growth for a SAS company. So like you always have this kind of like, oh, we could be doing more. Doing whatever.

[00:05:23] So like it, yeah, this is very, very long-winded, but like, absolutely that, I think you learned the hard way of, of like that ability to, to kind of come to terms with, like, I could do this, but I could get someone else to do it, or we could hire someone else to do it. And it might not be the way that I would do it, but the, the main, the main pro of this is I'm not doing it anymore and I can spend my time on something else.

[00:05:53] Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then, and then, so you've gone through that multiple times, that that's part of the entrepreneurial journeys though. When do you turn loose, uh, recognizing that you have limits to your own hours in the day scale and then eventually expertise, right. Eventually hired someone to go. There are a lot better at that than I am, right.

[00:06:13] Jobs to shut up and stay out of the way.

[00:06:16] Elliot Ross: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, often the stuff that you do. When you give up, some of that stuff is less exciting. Like, you know, we were still doing legal contracts and the, which I, when you own half the company, but like, you won't have the company. Right. So you don't want to give it away or, or cause yourself some kind of problem.

[00:06:35] So like you, you have to pay more attention than you're interested in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:06:41] Matthew Dunn: You're absolutely right. Um, did, did taxi, uh, did, did the impetus for taxi come out of, um, your own hands-on work? Like the tools are not just not adequate to the.

[00:06:54] Elliot Ross: Yeah. So the kind of, I guess, you know, the ESP space and now I work for an ESB, so I'll be very polite about them.

[00:07:01] Um, but, um, but like the ESP space has always had it kind of challenged with, with editors, right? And the point, the challenge is kind of maybe two or three fold. One is like, ESP has got a lot of work to do there, but a lot of things to make, it's very hard job like to build an ESP and like getting the content is the HTML is one, one small part of that.

[00:07:24] And if you've got a limited amount of developer time, you can't spend all the time trying to work out how to solve that. So I appreciate, you know, some ESPs, they just bring in some other tool, like, and sometimes that's a web development tool or whatever, but just plug something in and find that's that problem, solve it for a while.

[00:07:39] And we'll go and do something else like, um, coupled with the fact that like email code is notoriously not only hard and literally not standardized, but like also massively opinionated. So. My code, I could code something and people be like, no, this code is hell, but they won't work. And I mean, there'll be wrong of course,

[00:08:03] that they might have some other way of achieving the exact same goal in a completely different way of coding it. So like, and that, that varies across legions and brands and audiences and the makeup of what email clients do audiences using and all this kind of stuff. So like this, there is no kind of in the same way that like, if you were going to make a thing that put a tweet out or something like that, like you have to put out the Jason a certain way and it's either right or wrong, like in an email that's not.

[00:08:35] Yeah, the ESP, you know, that problem hadn't been solved basically. Right. And the thing that we realized quickly, as well as like our first client for taxi was, um, education first. Um, although at the time we didn't tell them that. Um, but, um, they were listening, they were sort of six, um, we'd had lots of success before, but, um, you know, they, um, so they pushed us a lot, like, because what had happened is we bought, we th they came to us basically saying like, we've got an English language course, and it's online.

[00:09:13] Like you're going to learn English on their course. Right. And you do this across, like, um, you can do this in 20 different languages, so you can. Speak German and want to learn English and use our tool to Bert. Um, and then there's however many levels of, of, uh, doing the course, you know, 30, 40. Um, and basically they came to us saying, Hey, look, we need to make these emails.

[00:09:34] Basically we need like a really complicated triggered sequence based on how well you're doing, what stage of course you are, what language you're doing. And we worked it out and they were like, look, you need like 17,000 different. HTMLs like, and at the time as an agency, we were like, okay, cool. So that, you know, 10 hours Durbin, well, okay.

[00:09:52] It's gotta be 5 million. Yeah, maybe we should've just done that. But, um, obviously you know, that wasn't gonna happen. So. Um, we needed, uh, some, so we built taxi kind of the first version of taxi was basically like a massive Excel sheet and everyone could translate stuff. And then you put the on one end and put your spreadsheet in and it kind of turned out and gave you a zip file with all us.

[00:10:18] Okay. Um, and then after a while they were like, oh, but we want to put the content in ourselves. And we're like, great, well, let's put that out. And then it kind of spiraled from there. But the thing that was interesting is like, the problem is less getting one bit of content into one email, but that's, that's kind of solved.

[00:10:38] It's not perfectly solved, but it's solved. Um, and more, how do you organize a hundred people trying to do this in like in 20 different languages in literally every country in the world, but you know yeah, yeah, exactly. We're not getting it wrong. Being able to then pick up the whole thing and put it into, I think it was.

[00:10:58] Oh, I forgot that what's the ESP that changes the name a lot. I mean, that could be any of them. The Silverpop.

[00:11:09] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Silverpop. IBM

[00:11:11] Elliot Ross: then acoustic. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah. And then, you know, pick up the whole thing and put it all into that when it's finished. Um, yeah, so like the thing, the thing we came to realize is like, actually the complexity is organizing all these people and being able to do it in a way that things don't go wrong.

[00:11:29] Um, yeah. And, and it turns out every enterprise has that problem. Of course.

[00:11:33] Matthew Dunn: Well, and, and, and, and taxis, one of the few tools that I know of that was really attempting to tackle that enterprise many hands on the work job is like cycle time. An email goes out the door from a company to a lot of people.

[00:11:53] There've been many, many folks looking at it saying, yes, no change this, do that. And weeks of work, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, wow. So you, what looked like a design problem became a login security workflow version control problems.

[00:12:11] Elliot Ross: Exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, commenting, uh, management of access, all this kind of stuff.

[00:12:17] And then just the standard enterprise stuff of like being able to do SSO and, you know, we've got an ISO, so if you're listening and you don't know what an ISL is, like, you're lucky to be on this. But, um, so ISA 27,001 is like a, a security standard, like, and you basically have to be right how your whole business operates to be able to do it.

[00:12:36] And I, and then document it and they come and audit you and all this concept. And it was like, you know, I guess verging into giving startup advice, which I remember, like, I don't want to be one of those guys, but like, definitely like, that is a very valuable thing for us. Really as a, as a band of like 10, 15 people at the time, like we were able to say, Hey, look, we take security very seriously.

[00:12:58] And we were able to compete or just get contracts with massive companies because you did like, yeah. Cause the first thing they do is go, oh, very little. How do we know that you're not going to trash everything. We go, well, we take this seriously. And also like procurement, if you've ever done procurement and enterprise, the first thing they do is they say right.

[00:13:17] Okay, cool. You want some stuff? Well, you want, you want to sell us your thing? Here's a massive spreadsheet. Um, this is going to take you, you know, two weeks even just to beat, let alone the answer. Um, so being able to say, Hey, look, we've got this ISA, they'd go. Okay, cool, fine. We don't need to do that then.

[00:13:33] Matthew Dunn: Wow. Yeah. That's excellent.

[00:13:36] Elliot Ross: Yeah. Things like that where like, you kind of learn on the way, but yeah. So

[00:13:40] Matthew Dunn: you guys launched taxi what circuit? 20 12, 23.

[00:13:44] Elliot Ross: Yeah, it was about them. They didn't have it kind of weird launched, like me kind of launched it eventually and put it on product hunt and all the kind of standard things that you do.

[00:13:51] But like, um, build a website and stuff. But like we had like probably 10 or 15 big enterprise clients by that point because okay. What we've done is like, so we built this thing for EDF and then quickly, like people, you know, you know what marketers are like, they move around every six months, that kind of thing.

[00:14:08] Like we quickly, and also actually like you had a whole bunch of clients as well that we were working with. So like, sure, we got taxi in like in five or six places pretty quickly. Um, and then those people started moving around and basically like every time we were like, okay, cool. We've got our heads above water.

[00:14:23] Let's launch this thing. And market yet someone would show up saying, Hey, look, we love taxi in this other job that you had. Let's do it here. Um,

[00:14:34] Matthew Dunn: but we need those features and I want it to work this way to plug into that and annuities. So,

[00:14:39] Elliot Ross: yeah. Yeah. And some of that, that kind of roadmap growth is interesting because some of it is like, there's a line, especially now in taxi, because it's pretty mature in what we do like this.

[00:14:53] We can look at something that, and the company will say, Hey, look, we need this. And we love it. That we can quite confidently say, look, that's just you, that needs that compared to, okay, cool. Well, that's on our road map anyway, we haven't done it yet, but we'll bump it up because there's a good business case to it because we'll get some money from you to do it and whatever, but like, um, so at that point, when you're two or three years in, it's really hard to work out, like what is bumping something of the roadmap because you weren't going to do it anyway.

[00:15:21] You just haven't got around to it yet and doing it will get you this sale compared to what is something that you're going to make. And no one else has ever going to use them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's hard. That stuff.

[00:15:33] Matthew Dunn: Well, th the best idea is my experience. I'm curious to know if it resonates. The best ideas is a random ass client, you know?

[00:15:43] Hey, nice. If right. Or we wish it could be like, oh man, that's a good, right. Thank you very much. But you can't be all things to all people.

[00:15:52] Elliot Ross: Exactly. And just really hard because we use the kind of agile methodology and all that kind of stuff at my bag. Wow. So that's a lot of that, or part of that is about like looking at the problem more than the solution.

[00:16:04] Um, and not being defined by right at the start and things like that. Yeah. I think that's right. Maybe it isn't maybe the one way, but like, um, so like looking at the problem to solve versus someone saying, Hey, it'd be great if there's a button here. Cause they've already decided that solution at that point.

[00:16:19] And they're not the product designer. It might not be great if there's a button there. Um, but what you want to hear from them, it's like, here's the problem I have. And here's the kind of result that I'm after. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, like, absolutely. There's got a whole ton of those and you've got to be really smart about like what's.

[00:16:37] Yeah. And also like, humans are flawed, right? If you ask, like anyone, anything, they might give you a different answer. Like they'll say something different to what their actual behaviors even. And they might honestly say something like, it's not malicious, like, because they believe something and then actually watch them.

[00:17:02] And they're like, oh, but you actually doing something completely different. Like say you'll hear a whole bunch of things. And then you'd be like, you actually don't need this. Like one thing that people asked for a lot, all the way through in demos. I mean, we did develop it eventually, but not for a long time was adding copy limits.

[00:17:18] Um, and people being like, oh, could I have a copy limit? And we'd be like, yeah. Okay, fine. You know, we don't have it right now. Think about doing it. And then, you know, they're getting their studies in. Totally. And they'd never asked for it again. And the reason was they could see the content in place. So it was obvious to them if it was broken or not.

[00:17:36] Um, so ahead of time saying, Hey, this should be 20 characters instead of 30, like you run the risk of actually stopping them doing their job. And then eventually we did some smart solutions to it. So it's all good. But like, what's interesting is like some people that was a deal breaker, like yeah. And it turns out once they get in the world, they're like, oh actually, yeah, we didn't realize that

[00:17:58] Matthew Dunn: I didn't really need that.

[00:17:59] Now. I didn't have the, I haven't had the opportunity to work with taxi hands-on, but is there a, um, is there a testing proofing, a lot of Litmos and, uh, email on acid and if not, was that a frequent request?

[00:18:16] Elliot Ross: Uh, yeah, it isn't, it isn't. So, um, we worked with both of those tools, um, The, the API is for them a slightly different.

[00:18:24] So the way we work with them is different for both. But, um, yeah, like you can, we, we quite early on thought, we're not going to replicate what those guys are doing. Like, you know what, we'll get this going. But, um, uh, what's interesting is like the concept of taxis. You have your, we call them email design systems, but basically like a template, like your, your sort of HTML, you can code that in whichever way you want, and you can then make that editable and you add, you make edits for what?

[00:18:52] Using something called taxi syntax. Okay. So crucially, like that's not, that's your HTML. I mean, we can do it for you. Um, but that is HTML, that's specific to your brand. So you can design the modules that you want and all these kind of things. Right. Um, and that's the kind of key difference to other products that are out there because a lot of those tools are like, here's our HTML.

[00:19:14] If you want three columns, great. Here's the code for that? But if your opinion is that code, isn't what I want. You can't change it. Um, so taxis is like, they could color code it exactly how you want because you're enterprise, you know what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, we'll help you and that's fine.

[00:19:27] But the point is then you take your ads and then you put that into taxi and then you use taxi to make individual email campaigns, and then you export to add, okay, I'm into whatever the you're using. And obviously there's that in the middle. There's that whole thing of scale for making different managers, regions, versions, segmentation, all that kind of complex stuff.

[00:19:47] So, or complex for content people. Cause it's not the strong suit or whatever. Right. Um, so the key thing there is that HTML is being be used over and over. Yeah. So you can go back and update it if you think, oh, actually we don't need a different module or it needs to be shapeless or DML has changed how it works and we need to change how this renders or whatever, and go back and change that.

[00:20:08] And then the thing that's using that will not work with your new code. Which is actually a massive side benefit because like one day a client came in and said, Hey, our template is black and we want to make it white. And we've already made a thousand emails and we're like, okay, cool. We're going to change the HTML.

[00:20:23] And it was done in like two hours, which like, if you were an agency, we'd still be doing it now. Right.

[00:20:31] So the point there is like, once you've done your HTML, you'll kind of just be using it over and over. So the need for those tools goes down quite a lot, because at that point, you've, you're confident that your HTML is really solid and tested. Um, and then you're just checking it sporadically, making sure that our actually GMO hasn't changed in the, in the 10 minutes since we last looked, that kind of thing.

[00:20:52] Matthew Dunn: Gotcha. Wow. Oh, wow. Fast, fascinating, fascinating challenge and quite different. User base is all touching the same

[00:21:04] Elliot Ross: thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. And designers, copywriters, it's all. Yeah.

[00:21:10] Matthew Dunn: V VP with a big red pen, everybody. Um, I'm curious to get your perspective on Southern cause you sorta a unique expertise in this space and it hearkens back to something you touched on earlier as well.

[00:21:25] Um, you've got the ridiculous multiplicity of, of end clients viewing, uh, viewing a given email message. You've got mass scale and potentially mass scale in terms of the volume that gets sent to those, that multiplicity of clients. And you've got this relatively. Relatively brittle thing called the email HTML.

[00:21:52] Yes. That takes so much work to, you know, to get it to just like hold together and actually display that. It's struck me for a long time that, that the actual content, like the stuff that people read, the images, they see the, you know, the layout, like it's so hard to make that go. That, that there's less focus on the actual content than, than might be ideal.

[00:22:21] Yeah.

[00:22:21] Elliot Ross: Yeah. Massively, like, I mean, we've seen that with a lot of clients where like, they go from a place where, you know, it takes 20, 20 hours, 30 hours to get an email out the door, sometimes just one email, like code it, get the content together by it, design it, whatever. And sometimes that's 20, 30 hours of work can be spread over two weeks, three weeks.

[00:22:41] And to be honest, the longer it is, the more chance there is the products will go out of stock. Someone else will have an opinion, we've got to change everything and whatever. Um, so being able to shorten that, um, is, is the first thing. So being able to say, actually instead of 30 hours, we can do it until three hours, but this would not be coding everything every time and not be designing, everything, whatever.

[00:23:01] Um, but also, yeah, you're right. Like being able to focus on the actual content, which is what at the end of the day that the audience cares about. Right. But they don't look, I mean, we do, but like they don't look through the code and go, oh, well this is coding. Well, I think I'll buy this product. Like the audience doesn't care.

[00:23:21] Exactly. So like, you know, and they might notice if it's wrong or if it doesn't work in a different email client or whatever, say it is important, but like. The actual words in your email and whether they're spelled correctly and whether they make sense and that we talk in, in its translation space. Um, talk about this idea of transcreation.

[00:23:42] Um, and that is you D you don't just translate words directly. So like, especially things like German, like German, the sentence structure is different. Often the verb goes to the end and things like that. Um, so, and, and obviously like your references, your kind of pseudonyms and, and little what's the word, you know, that little phrases and things like that.

[00:24:05] And upon, or whatever, like it might work in English. It might not work in different language. So like, it's less about just that. And you translate the words cause a machine could do that at this point. Um, it's about actually rewrite the content. So it works for different audience. Um, so yeah, like, and so a lot of the benefit, I guess this is about.

[00:24:27] Providing a safe environment. So those people that come in and actually work because the previous places you, you say here's English email, and then it's in a spreadsheet and just put your words in or something. Yeah,

[00:24:38] Matthew Dunn: yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The sorta, w what's an Adam, what's a molecule, meaning wise design wise, et cetera.

[00:24:46] And if it, if it's, if it's so tenuously constructed that a slightly longer headline is going to destroy a bunch of stuff. Yeah. You compromise the headline, which is what they, this is what the end, you know, the end recipient actually reads, consumes, reacts to they don't, they don't give a crap about your character limitations fundamentally.

[00:25:09] Elliot Ross: Yeah. And, and, you know, and the, especially isn't the context. So you don't see, you don't see where this text is going in relation to the paragraph next to it or whatever, or. Well, this kind of stuff. So like getting those people as close to the actual real thing as possible is, has a huge benefit in the actual content.

[00:25:29] But it's really hard to measure that other than like the results and things, but like, you know, you can objective, you say, well, look, this is obviously a better email because it was, it makes more sense and, you know, whatever, but like it's said, email is sometimes a bit of a pain like that because if you go straight to like, well, this converted better.

[00:25:47] Yeah. Right. Sometimes it's hard to argue that, but sometimes it doesn't say what's the absolute best thing.

[00:25:54] Matthew Dunn: What's the absolute best email. Yeah. I mean, I remember when I was at it's an analogous, but it is not the same technical space. And when I was around, uh, web design, um, realizing that it was easier to say mock this up in Photoshop, which is what everybody did, why.

[00:26:13] HTML. And it's much more mature in the web space than it is in the email space, but HTML is a pain in the butt. It's not a design tool, right. It's like, yeah. You just like, you just like trying to make an architecture, sketch with a power, saw it, just this hard way

[00:26:28] Elliot Ross: to get there. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I kind of came from that space and doing web design early in the, in the two thousands and stuff.

[00:26:36] And like, um, that process now is, is a lot more kind of fluid. Like we talk a bit more about code working directly in code or, or kind of abstracting stuff and using prototyping tools and things like that. But yeah, you know, that kind of, that methodology, if like design it in Photoshop first night or that, and they get that approved and then go into each smell like that still stands to this day for a lot of people.

[00:26:59] Yeah. It's got, it's got quite a lot of floors, but it is a way to get some stuff done. So, yeah.

[00:27:04] Matthew Dunn: Well, and, and, and. It is a way to, to, to be content first or content forward, at least in theory, right? It's like, wow, that looks great. It's compelling. It holds together. It's gonna move people or compel people. Now, how do we make the technical stuff achieve that vision?

[00:27:24] So at least you've got it. At least you've got a concrete thing out there in front of you instead of start with the constraints of the tech first and let that guide what you do,

[00:27:34] Elliot Ross: where it falls down is, is when you get the. It's going to say attitude, but I think it's more kind of business business attitude rather than like a personal attitude, but like, um, but it, that it has to look exactly as the virtual file.

[00:27:46] Yeah.

[00:27:47] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Because that's not reality either.

[00:27:49] Elliot Ross: Yeah. You've got to, you've got to take some, you know, and I've been in that situation a whole bunch of times, especially on I work, I worked at ESP for quite while the night we were working with big, the big kind of ad agencies, you kind of Ogleby some people like that.

[00:28:03] And like they would design, design something and then come back and say, Hey, this has to be pixels at it. And it's like, yeah, but, but, but don't look at like the snakes because it's going to blow your mind.

[00:28:15] Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. And, and, and th the, you know, the Photoshop guys working in a platonic ideal land right.

[00:28:25] Where they can control pixels in, I'm sorry, but there are 17,000 combinations ballpark of email clients. And ain't gonna look

[00:28:33] Elliot Ross: like. But if your background or, you know, if you're also, you're doing this ad campaign and you're doing an email and a billboard, a TV commercial, wasn't like the billboards going to look exactly the same for everyone.

[00:28:44] Yeah. I mean, aside from the fact that people would put up billboards, like, I mean, I have a community for two years, but I would always look at billboards and see them being wonky or something. Not like

[00:28:54] Matthew Dunn: that's a designer, that's a designer writer or the, you know, the thing, get some, some, uh, pigments fade faster than others.

[00:29:05] So like the times like,

[00:29:10] Elliot Ross: fuck it, it ruins your life. Yeah,

[00:29:12] Matthew Dunn: yeah, yeah, yeah. That I read, I read one. I said, I think it was someone at Google got a call late at night from Steve jobs really? Yeah. Early, early iPhone days. And what he was calling about was that the RGB code for the yellow in the Google icon was bugging him because it didn't look.

[00:29:34] Oh, that's beautiful. I just, I just love that. Hey, switch gears for a sec, LA cause I mean, we we've talked about taxi a bunch, but now you've been on a, you've been on a whole nother journey for the past six, eight months coming as taxi becomes part of a, a much bigger company with a heck of a global footprint.

[00:29:55] Uh what's what's it been like first off going from, you know, entrepreneurs, SAS land to the, the, you know, the Nervana that everybody thinks they want in SAS land of acquisition.

[00:30:09] Elliot Ross: Um, it's, it's been fun. Like, um, so I, I don't know what I've signed to say. I can't say anything. I don't want to be standing salacious, but there was no installation study, but so I emanate like mergers and acquisitions, like.

[00:30:28] If you watch Silicon valley or you beads, you know, you're, you're in the tech space or you go to meet ups or whatever, it's always the kind of, yeah. All good, but then to get quiet and whatever. Right. And it's cool. And it's like, but the reality of course is like past four or five months, whatever longer time, probably of like hard work, like you're trying to run a business.

[00:30:50] Like the first thing your lawyer is say is like, look, don't just don't change anything. Keep on running your business as you, as you normally would, because the whole thing could collapse. You could walk away at any time. They could walk away whatever. And we've been in situations like that before, like with different M and a and things like that.

[00:31:05] So like, you know, it, to some extent might be, you know, being a, quite a bit, I have a long into the business six or seven years, but it wasn't the first time we've had those conversations. But like obviously the, the one that got all the way through. Um, but yeah, like, so the first thing is like, you're trying to run your business.

[00:31:21] And also you're trying to. Get everything together, you know, like you have to get all of the information. You're kind of politely arguing about price and the valuation and all that kind of stuff. Obviously working with people and it's, to some extent, the game you play, um, you know, you have a list conversations, you're kind of going back and forth with your lawyers, with their lawyers, all this kind of stuff.

[00:31:47] So there's a huge amount of just stuff to keep track of. And this is kind of, you know, six months out of your life, um, getting that done. Um, and then after acquisition, and also in, within that, like you quite purposefully, don't tell the entire team, like, unfortunately, you know, I have great relationships with a lot of people on the team or everyone on the team.

[00:32:08] Um, but like you can't, you can't tell the team when you're doing stuff, you got to be very careful about it. You know, whatever. You also doing all of this stuff within like 12 or people and trying to run a business and try to deal with all sorts of team stuff and help the team, you know, facial, they're not put off by anything and all this kind of stuff.

[00:32:29] So that's all very complex. Um,

[00:32:33] Matthew Dunn: and then the public having a business, it's like having a fair in business. Yeah. Not that I've done that, but

[00:32:41] Elliot Ross: yeah. You know, even just things, I, the way that I don't think there's a way to send a meeting invite that doesn't. Uh, come in as secret. Yeah. Um, or whatever. Yeah. So yeah, as soon as a meeting invite would come in, we'd be like, okay, cool.

[00:32:59] Let's do a mark. That is whatever, um, private study, it's all silly things like that because anyone can come in and see, uh, calendars and things. Um, but, um, so yeah, doing that. And then obviously there's a whole thing about, you know, you tell the team and, and you have to kind of work out, make sure that like you want to bring the whole team with you.

[00:33:22] Of course, that's a lot for them to take in and to help everyone go through that kind of anxiety of where they're going to be and how it's going to be great for them and all this kind of stuff like that. Simon's like kind of be asking them, but like, it is genuinely like, you know, this is a great opportunity for everyone on the team, but like, um, you know, that that's not a hard, hard job and you've got to work with a whole bunch of people to do it.

[00:33:47] And then also. Just after the acquisition, that's a whole bunch of integration stuff. You know, just the kind of fairly obvious things like setting up on a new HR system and meeting all the financial stuff around and all that kind of thing. Um, but also helping people find their new roles and trying to work out that actually.

[00:34:06] How does feel like taxi? You know, we did have one to see people working on sales and now we have a whole army of salespeople. So how do we get them up to speed? How do we train them? How do we make sure they're putting out the right message, how to prospect it, all this kind of stuff. So like working through all of that stuff is, is a great challenge, but also, you know, a lot of work.

[00:34:23] So like people don't realize that in the kind of exhibition process, people think it's all like, you know, oh, someone's going to walk up with a wheelbarrow full of money and you'll just walk up to the sunset light. That's not quite how it happens.

[00:34:33] Matthew Dunn: It's actually a lot more work.

[00:34:35] Elliot Ross: Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah.

[00:34:38] Matthew Dunn: Wow. Wow. My, my, my, my sidebar site that I think is worth throwing out. It's like, so if you're an entrepreneur listening to this and you're going to start into the acquisition thing, you probably want to tell the team is that you've got a really, really bad disease. And then it's a lot of doctor's appointments, right?

[00:34:56] Because you're going to have mysterious calendar stuff and you're going to be unavailable. And, and they're going to know what's going on sooner or later. I've, I've been around in, in my, in my, in my time in, uh, in large corporations, I, I was around the acquirer side of things and, and watching the, just the shock factor, right.

[00:35:20] Especially going from small company to becoming part of larger, really large company. It's just kind of like, what do you mean we can't do that? Or we have to log into that, or we have to attend this, or there's HR policies that are no longer than the Bible. Like, especially team members who may not have had corporate experience becoming part of a larger corporation.

[00:35:45] He's a big shift in.

[00:35:47] Elliot Ross: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and I totally appreciate it. It's not what people signed up for it. I, and it's a big ask and people go, come with it and can see why it's going to be great and all this kind of stuff, but it's, it is like, uh, you didn't get the consultant beforehand and say, Hey, what do you think about this?

[00:36:04] You know?

[00:36:04] Matthew Dunn: Right. Right. And, and in your particular case you had, like, you had a double whammy for taxi because UK company acquired by an American company then in turn, acquired by a company based in, uh, is it Holland, Amsterdam, Amsterdam. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, you know, marrying those, those cultures and business cultures, boom, boom.

[00:36:29] Yes.

[00:36:30] Elliot Ross: It's definitely from like, I think it's, it's interesting because. So we had obviously like London startup, that's a kind of European startup culture that we, I wouldn't say we're all in on. Like, I think we kind of were around it, but like we're also a bootstrap company. So like you don't get to spend all the time swanning around at VC parties or whatever.

[00:36:56] Um, so we kind of work around it, but not in it, I guess. Um, so like our culture was kind of a little thrifty and a little scrappy and just trying to work, work stuff out, but also, um, yeah, what's that kind of startup culture. And then I think actually, like, it's kind of interesting to spark a SparkPost.

[00:37:14] The culture is, is more mature. Like they've been around a longer time that in a, uh, a massive business, like this small place powers is something like a

[00:37:26] Matthew Dunn: quarter of the world's emails

[00:37:29] Elliot Ross: or something. Yeah. Like, so if you didn't know, like, I think it's like. 10 of the top 13 ESPs or something like that, or SparkPost has something to do with, you know, um, so like, um, so yeah, the, the amount of stuff that, that goes on that SparkPost is involved in is, is, is amazing to see, but like that culture is like, this is a bit more grown up culture and obviously like American versus UK and all this kinda stuff.

[00:37:57] Um, but then what's interesting is like MessageBirds on top of that is more European culture. Um, this kind of startup culture, I think is a slightly younger company than SparkPost. I'm not sure. So, um, yeah, but, um, so it's interesting seeing that. Yeah. Like we've got these kind of three cultures and it isn't the case where like, Just merges into the kind of one culture, like you find your culture between all these groups.

[00:38:27] Um, and the culture is always a moving thing, like in a company, like, you know, that the taxi culture was different from day to day even, or, you know, month to month, year to year. So like, um, there is no kind of, you know, oh, Hey cool. Here's how we're going to change how we think it will be, become this culture.

[00:38:44] And I like it, it kind of naturally evolves I think, in, in a business like, um, but yeah, it's interesting kind of shepherding that a bit and seeing where it goes. And

[00:38:53] Matthew Dunn: that's the stuff that tends to that. The culture stuff's interesting that you gravitated towards that. Cause I, I would have asked you about it.

[00:39:00] That's frequently, this stuff that tends to make or break the actual success. It's not plumbing, technology processes, finances alone. It's how do I feel like, how do I relate, uh, how do I do this job? And, and so much of that stuff.

[00:39:19] Elliot Ross: Yes, absolutely. And I, and I think through the kind of M and a process, you've got to be very careful about that kind of stuff.

[00:39:25] Like, not just how you, how you position it for people, but also just, is it the right idea? Like we had conversations before. Yeah. With nice people, you know, from all the way from like people who you might think. Okay, cool. Yeah. It's obvious that they would have that conversation to people that you're like, oh, who the hell is that?

[00:39:43] You know? Um, and you get people fairly often say, Hey, look, we own with, we are in all these other companies, can we buy your company? And then you look at a number of conversations with one of them. I was like, okay, fine. We'll entertain you. It'd been a bad day or whatever, but now I'll have a call with you.

[00:40:00] And then the guy says something like, oh yeah, that company, we actually kept the leadership team as a okay. Next, like actually

[00:40:09] Matthew Dunn: big signal to throw out. Right? Yeah. Well, I mean, you'd mentioned, I said, dude, this is neutral ground for, for both of us. You'd mentioned. Silverpop IBM acoustic. Right? That's a, that's an, that's an org that went through some of the wrenching parts I suspect of, of they would private equity gets involved.

[00:40:30] It's almost always a whole different ball game. I'm curious about your, because this is not specific to MessageBird or SparkPosted. I'm curious about your candid take on bond. Let's say London startup culture versus American startup culture. What do you, what do you see as the differences?

[00:40:50] Elliot Ross: Um, yeah, that's interesting.

[00:40:51] So, so what is, is just the money, not, especially from getting VC funding, like there's so much more VC money. I mean, it's on the coast, right. But it's either New York or San Francisco or Silicon valley. Um, but like there's just so much more money. Um, it's this is the way that the UK like financially is set up.

[00:41:11] There's some, there's some benefit to being an angel investor. Um, in the UK, because basically you can put in 150,000 pounds into a fund, like an angel fund. And that start up would usually get what, three or 4 million, I guess, as a series a, um, so you could be part of that. Um, and if you put your 150,000 and there's some allowance that you get from the government, which is basically if the whole thing falls down, you can reclaim that 150,000 as tax credit.

[00:41:41] Oh, wow. So basically you're, you're putting some money in, it might turn into something amazing Nolan. The base base level is you can just take it off your tax bill obviously. Has

[00:41:53] Matthew Dunn: that been, has that been overall a success and is that relatively recent?

[00:41:59] Elliot Ross: Um, no, it's been around a while, but I mean, we didn't do any of that, but I think it does shape some of the, kind of the start up investment in the UK.

[00:42:06] Yeah. Um, generally the money though, as a result is quite small, like, so it's hard to get a lot of money. Yeah.

[00:42:16] Matthew Dunn: In the,

[00:42:18] Elliot Ross: obviously I don't have too much experience of like Silicon valley and all that kind of stuff. But like, you got the impression that you, you just go to lunch with someone and say, Hey, I've got an idea.

[00:42:26] I'm

[00:42:26] Matthew Dunn: going to write your $5

[00:42:27] Elliot Ross: million check or bad AI for shoes. Oh, great. How's it gonna work? I don't know. Can I have some money? And I I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but it feels more feasible that that would happen in Silicon valley. Whereas in London, someone was taking it out of my restaurant, like, um, yeah, yeah.

[00:42:42] Massively over oversimplifying things. But I think there is that kind of, you know, you hear all the stories of like all the, the kind of groups of funds trying to out compete each other, or, you know, I've got an AI startup, so therefore they've got one side, therefore I've got, have one, all that kind of stuff.

[00:42:57] And that doesn't tend to happen as much in London. Um, the other thing is. I mean, not just in, in startup finance or whatever, but, you know, traditionally in business has quite often been the gateway to Europe for a lot of American companies. Um, so in that way, the startup startup culture is kind of in the middle between kind of pure European, I guess.

[00:43:25] Um, and then like Berlin Amsterdam, um, uh, big startup places. There's a few places Nestle and that sort of thing. Um, but like, um, yeah, my kind of being in between the U S and Europe, it's kind of got this hybrid culture plus a whole bunch of, of UK stuff going on as well. Um, the other thing is like the UK is like, especially England is very London focused.

[00:43:58] Um, so. I don't want to go into the of politics, but like, you know, you have this in the U S right? Like there is there, there were the cities and there were movable areas and you have the kind of rust belt and all this kind of stuff, right? Like there is, there are similarities in the UK, like the, this, this concept idea of the north south divide, um, where like oversimplifying, but like the north had been coal mines and steel works is still works and heavy industry.

[00:44:26] A lot of that business has gone away. Hasn't massively been replaced by stuff. Um, there are kind of pockets of things. They were enterprise, and this there's some kind of pockets for startups, but really, if you want to start an international business is going to be in London.

[00:44:40] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. You're going to be in London.

[00:44:41] Have you read Richard? Florida's a rise of the creative class.

[00:44:45] Elliot Ross: No, it's on my list actually.

[00:44:47] Matthew Dunn: That's I, and he's got a, he's got a, he's got a follow up and I think he's actually got some regrets now. Yeah, I read a Columbine recently that really surprised me, but, uh, it, that didn't have the sort of thesis that you, that, that concentration, that, that actual physical in the same city kind of concentration that leads to relationships, connections networking makes for these, you know, creative class, um, hotspots, which has been, I think, quite shifted by the pandemic, honestly.

[00:45:22] Yeah.

[00:45:23] Elliot Ross: That's definitely been a trend that, you know, like bef when we were independent, we were very much like that you can work from home if you've got a plumber coming around, but you've got, you've got a desk in our office and you especially like, and now SparkPost culture and more side message. But I think SparkPost had been a lot more along those lines as well, but now it's very much like you can, you can be, you know, remote and then now the, the message.

[00:45:52] Policies, uh, work from anywhere, right? As long as, as long as you are in the same time zone, or you show up in the same time zone, right. You could be on the moon as long as you show up at the right time and you've got decent internet connection and you can do your job, like get on with it. Yeah,

[00:46:07] Matthew Dunn: yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:07] I mean, from that end, from that perspective, not to get off the fascinating startup track, but that the, the twist, the pandemic put on a bunch of dynamics that were already there, but just, just hadn't crystallized. I mean, I've been, I moved out of, uh, what let's call it a secondary hotspot, Seattle, all it's becoming a primary hot spot for startups and stuff like that.

[00:46:32] Like we, we left that 25 years ago to a small town, um, for, you know, for our own reasons, family, kids and stuff like that. And it was, it was like a conscious. Uh, go down the ladder, multiple notches, uh, compromise because you didn't get to work remotely very much then. Yeah. And now it's like, oh, oh look, that's actually, it works just fine.

[00:46:55] A lot of people have adapted to it. I think a lot of people go back to offices, but I do wonder if back to your rust belt and London centric thing, I do wonder if what we will start seeing, uh, more dis more dispersion of, of innovation and even funding of innovation. Like for example, um, Cleveland, Ohio, middle of the rust belt, quite a hotspot for startups in tech companies.

[00:47:24] Now, like they've managed to get some sort of critical mass, like they're their own, their own creative class sort of epicenter, but, but all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can, I can get a rocking startup going and it doesn't have. And Silicon valley. And that's

[00:47:39] true,

[00:47:41] Elliot Ross: but how, how remote is that though? Like, if that's just 20 people in an office, just in a different state, like that's, that's not as remote, right?

[00:47:48] Like the, the true remote is like, everyone is anywhere in the state. You see everyone physically twice a year or something. Yeah. Well that

[00:47:56] Matthew Dunn: I suspect, I suspect we'll see that that's going to have mature. That's going to mature over quite a span of time. And eventually it'll be like, we'll, we'll understand what the model of, uh, of, uh, of a really effective.

[00:48:11] Everybody from anywhere startup looks like right now, it's happenstance. Like these guys are good at it. These guys are bad at it. You can't really tell the difference because we haven't done it long enough.

[00:48:22] Elliot Ross: Yeah, exactly. And I think there's a few other things that are at play that are kind of scaring things a bit.

[00:48:26] So one is, there's a massive employment shortage, like employee shortage. So like, yeah. A lot of people are just forced into being remote to be able to get anyone to work, you know, at a job like, um, and also the pandemic of course, But I think the pandemic it's kind of hard to tell, but I anecdotally I've had quite a lot of conversations with people being like, oh no, actually I don't want to be in central London anymore.

[00:48:54] I don't need to be here. Like, I'm happy being a bit further out and I can go in if I want them, all this kind of stuff. Um, now that that's going 20, 30 miles away from London, it's not going to the other end of the country. But like, um, there's, there's some of those conversations going on and you kind of see it a bit.

[00:49:10] People just want, you know, they want gardens. They don't want to live in an apartment and whatever. Um, the other thing I think is kind of interesting and it's massively skewed by my own experience, but, um, you know, thirties, I guess, late thirties now I'm going to be 40 soon. Um, and then. I've done my 15 years showing up every day, getting on the train and spending three hours on the train.

[00:49:34] They went back and walking and whatever. Right. But like, to let you do that when you're young and whatever, but also I had the benefit of working in person to person, you know, like, so I think it's, I think us having this conversation, we have to be aware of like, we've had the benefit of being in an office for 10, 15 years.

[00:49:57] So like we know that it's. Yeah. And also like you have, you learn so much, you get so many skills from just being around people and talking to people while you're waiting for the coffee to be made or to, you know, the kettle to boil or whatever. Like. So it's easy for us to say, well, I've got kids now and I don't want to do in a work.

[00:50:18] Like, of course, like, you know, the kids are in the highest and whatever. I mean, they're not at school, but like, you know, like I love working at home now. Like, I don't know if I'd be in the position I am now, if I hadn't have spent a lot of time in an office. Yeah.

[00:50:34] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Good observation. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[00:50:36] I echo that back to you and say like, maybe this is, you know, an older perspective. It's like we can work from home because we actually learned how to work.

[00:50:47] Elliot Ross: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's kind of say, right. Um,

[00:50:51] Matthew Dunn: and I do hear, I do hear like, you know, friends who run companies or, you know, manage our organizations or whatever, like they do bitch about millennials.

[00:51:00] Like, uh, you know, like every, you know, I've got, I can't do this and I have a conflict and I want to do that. No, you need to do your job. Dang it.

[00:51:11] Elliot Ross: Yeah. I mean, we definitely have that kind of conversation. Um, you know, a few years ago, even just around remote working people, we didn't feed people and they'd be like, well, I need to work from home on Fridays.

[00:51:21] I've got a dog inside. What, like, did we not say that this job is five days a week? Like fine. You can work four days and go hang out with your dog if you want. And your salary will be four-fifths of what they advertised for. Like, you know? Yeah. I, I get it. You know, I kind of see I'm conflicted about this because like, yeah, I I've done.

[00:51:49] I mean, especially starting action market. I worked four or five hours a day on actual market and then did my full-time job as a dialogue at the time that I used to go in at like six in the morning, go and do my client work. So about nine, do my job there probably do a couple hours in the evening as well.

[00:52:05] Like, so like, you know, that was what, 80, 90 hours a week of work, like, so like I've done that for a long time and put in that work, but like, so like, but I completely appreciate not wanting to, you know, wanting to have a lot of work life balance that isn't that. Um, so I get it the, but also I kind of begrudge a little, the attitude of like, you don't have to put the work in to get something or, you know, like you still got to do it.

[00:52:42] I'm afraid. Like I agree with w whatever, which way, you know, Um, yeah, you don't just, but you know, if you want to be some overnight success, fine, just go and do something stupid on Instagram, but like, or Snapchat or whatever, but like that's not sustainable and you'll go like, you'll have your 15 minutes and go like, so you've got to work hard and do it.

[00:53:05] Unfortunately, whichever way you want to, you know, whichever way you slice and dice that

[00:53:09] Matthew Dunn: I am in complete agreement with what you said and what you were also saying underneath that. I mean, the Malcolm Gladwell gave it a label, a 10,000 hours thing, but you know, the Beatles put in three years in Munich, living in a crappy apartment and playing multiple gigs eight days a week, right.

[00:53:27] They, they paid their F they paid, paid their dues. They did the work that made them a terrific band. They didn't just show up and go, Ooh, magic happened. And, and that is what's irksome about Instagram and tick talks. Like the 15 minutes of fame is, is accidental. Yeah, it's not something, and it's not something that, that you have ownership of either it's completely culturally random.

[00:53:55] So if you go out of out, go out of style and you were going to whine about it, like you, didn't only real assets there. I'm sorry.

[00:54:03] Elliot Ross: Yeah. I mean, that's interesting as well. Cause we kind of, I think in our generation we've seen people, so like, well, have I got this from like, um, in a different world previously?

[00:54:14] Like I was a DJ and works. Like I, I did like four or five years. I probably did. More, more like as a, you know, what you would call a professional DJ. I mean, whether any BJ's is professionalist, it's quite a complex issue, but like, um, you know, turn up, play other people's music for four hours and go home.

[00:54:36] Like that's not really a professional thing, but whatever. Um, but like I did that. What was interesting is you'd see people turn up and do like live PAs and things know they'd had a song out whatever, and people would legitimately be like what? I've had one song out and people would expect them to have to pay for everything, to have all the money in the world.

[00:55:04] And then you see these people a little bit lighter, you know, if you have a few years later and they're having a thing, like, you know, had a song and people know who they are, but like they're not living in a mansion and be tired or whatever. So, but society's perception is like, oh, why is that guy working in the supermarket is cause like, well, no one's businesses music anymore, but like, you still got a job, still got to survive.

[00:55:28] And I think people don't realize that that kind of, yeah, like you can have your success on Instagram, we'll take stock or whatever, like right. Fine. That's doesn't piss me all the time

[00:55:37] Matthew Dunn: at money that actually dots back to, uh, your, your observation about, um, London startup us startup on my read on U S startup, is that the VC funds for this week's unicorn, those make the headlines.

[00:55:58] Yeah. But a zillion guys slaving away in their basement who like don't get a shot at or decide not to because she bootstrapped, we bootstrapped, like, I'm sure you had VC saying, oh, this is great. We want to advance you. Like, I don't actually need it. Yeah,

[00:56:19] Elliot Ross: I thought the other thing is we had a very good lawyer, like actually, um, yeah, uh, our first, sorry, I'm derailing things, but like it's some random, a bit, bit of advice that someone gave us is like, get a good lawyer and get them to do all your contracts like with, with customers.

[00:56:37] Because when you come to do an acquisition, you want, you want them to be great at doing acquisitions so you can get high street lawyer, and they'd be great at doing your customer contacts. But if they've agreed a whole bunch of stuff that then your acquisition lawyer is going to be like, what the hell is this?

[00:56:49] We can't sell it. Like, so like we just went with a good loss of like yet, obviously lawyers are super expensive, but yeah, like, um, it's not inexpensive. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:01] Matthew Dunn: Well, here, here, we're Elliot. I knew this would happen. I've tied up an entire hour of your time, but this is actually one of my favorite conversations.

[00:57:09] Cause because we got a there's email, but there's also. The company, uh, company and, and building and learning part of the thing that is equally part of the

[00:57:21] Elliot Ross: voyage. Yeah. I find that stuff hard. It's good to talk about this actually, because there is no advice there is advice, but it's all kind of people who haven't done it or there cause people, people have the advice too busy doing it.

[00:57:33] Like, so you get these kind of, you know, the best you get is someone's second hand anecdote or something. So yeah, it's good to just kind of talk about bunch of random stuff.

[00:57:41] Matthew Dunn: You get the sort of the pablum veto, like li like if there were a formula for sex successful startup, the guy who won the formula would be really, really wealthy because the truth is it, every one of them has a different arc and a different voyage.

[00:57:56] And I'm going to guess if you did this all over again, you'd have learned a ton of stuff, but it would still be hard work to do it all over again. Yeah,

[00:58:04] Elliot Ross: exactly. You can't like, um, you've got a.

[00:58:12] Um, I'm like both taxi and action market were to solve a problem. Like, so we kind of had a fair idea of product market fit or whatever, or validation out of the gate. Like you've got to, you've got to have an actual problem to solve and be able to do it. And like, so to that, my point though is like, it's cliche to say, you know, it's more the journey than the result, but like, if you go in and say, Hey, I'm going to start up and make a start up and sell it.

[00:58:41] It's not going to work. Like, unless literally you're, you're creating a vehicle to relieve a whole bunch of VCs of some money and then to make something that you can then sell to a whole bunch of other VCs, but that's not useful over.

[00:58:56] Matthew Dunn: And I always assumed VCs are better at math. Right? It's like that's business area and no, that's a, , it's a, it's a good observation.

[00:59:06] Like, and your foothold with. Um, action. Rocket of, of being at the coalface, seeing the problem was probably invaluable. Like, like we're seeing this every day across multiple clients. What if, what if we found a better way to solve it? Could that be a business of its own? Could we build a product to do that, which is technically complex and unpredictable and all of those, all of those other things.

[00:59:32] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wonderful. Well, let me, let me get you off the hook and thank you for such an engaging conversation. Um, yeah, my, my guest has been Elliott Ross, uh, currently wearing the technology evangelist, I think at SparkPost, um, badge, but I expect additional things. I do look forward to us meeting live at some point.

[00:59:56] I mean, zoom is fine and fun, but you know, having a beer and talking, as you were saying about the office, uh, is, is a different.

[01:00:05] Elliot Ross: Yeah, I miss that like conferences and things are starting to come back, but it's that the event industry, I don't envy anyone in that space. Like good on you for working in there because you've had a, a fun challenge.

[01:00:19] It's a fun game at the best of times, but yeah,

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