Breaking the Founder Bottleneck: How to Scale Your Business Beyond Yourself

Jeff Klaumann on Breaking the Founder Bottleneck

For many founders of boutique professional service firms, there comes a point where their own brilliance and drive become the very thing constraining the company's growth. This phenomenon, known as the "Founder Bottleneck," is pervasive and prevents firms from scaling effectively and achieving successful exits. Jeff Klaumann, an entrepreneurial COO and key leader at Collective 54, has advised hundreds of founders on navigating this critical challenge.

Drawing from his experience building Collective 54 alongside founder Greg Alexander and advising numerous member firms, Klaumann offers a practical roadmap for identifying, understanding, and ultimately breaking through the founder bottleneck.

Key Insights from the Conversation

1. Understanding the Founder Bottleneck The bottleneck occurs when the founder, who started the firm based on their domain expertise, becomes overwhelmed by the demands of running a growing business. Initially focused on sales and delivery, they find themselves spread thin across finance, recruiting, people management, and countless other tasks. The firm becomes overly reliant on the founder for decisions and key functions, ultimately limiting scale. Klaumann notes this isn't a matter of if but when founders hit this invisible ceiling.

2. The Warning Signs: Time and Money The bottleneck typically manifests in two primary ways:

• Time: The founder simply runs out of hours. They can't work sustainably harder, and their inability to delegate or systematize means crucial tasks get delayed or dropped. The firm's capacity becomes capped by the founder's personal bandwidth.

• Money: The firm's financial success remains directly tied to the founder's personal production (e.g., winning deals, delivering key projects). This "hero style" model prevents the business from generating value independent of the founder, limiting profitability and potential exit valuation.

3. The Cultural Impact: The "Hero with a Thousand Helpers" When a firm operates as a "hub-and-spoke" model centered on the founder, the cultural consequences are significant:

• Growth Plateaus: The firm can't grow beyond the founder's capacity.

• Founder Burnout: The founder becomes overwhelmed and potentially resentful, impacting morale.

• Team Stagnation: Team members become dependent, unable to make decisions or advance projects without the founder. Their professional growth stalls, leading to frustration and attrition. The structure prevents the development of future leaders.

4. The Solution Starts with Founder Self-Assessment Breaking the bottleneck begins with the founder, recognizing their identity is often intertwined with the firm's. The crucial first step is a candid self-assessment:

• What are you truly great at?

• What do you genuinely love doing?

• What do you hate doing or are simply not good at?

This honest evaluation identifies the founder's "key contributions" and clarifies which responsibilities should be delegated. It prevents hiring mirror images and ensures the right complementary leaders are brought in.

5. Splitting the Founder Role: Visionary & Integrator Scaling requires splitting the all-encompassing founder role into two distinct functions: a Visionary (focused on the future, big picture, external relationships) and an Integrator (focused on today's business, execution, internal management – often a President or COO). Klaumann stresses this transition doesn't happen overnight but requires intentional, incremental delegation.

6. The Evolving #1/#2 Dynamic: Intentionality and Trust The relationship between the founder (Visionary) and their second-in-command (Integrator) is critical and must evolve. Klaumann shares his own experience with Greg Alexander:

• Initial Alignment: Using personality assessments (DISC, Predictive Index, Myers-Briggs) helped them understand complementary strengths and potential friction points before launching.

• Ongoing Adjustment: They conduct monthly reviews of their respective key contributions, deliberately shifting responsibilities based on evolving business needs, individual strengths, and personal desires.

• Radical Candor: Building deep trust allows them to call each other out constructively when someone strays into the other's lane.

• Shared Mindset: A shared "all-in," "burn the ships" commitment provides a foundational alignment.

7. Effective Transition: The "Show, Do, Coach" Method Successfully transitioning key contributions requires more than just assigning tasks. Klaumann advocates a structured approach:

• Show: The founder demonstrates how the task is done.

• Do (with coaching): The number two performs the task, with the founder observing and providing immediate feedback.

• Coach: The number two takes full ownership, seeking coaching from the founder only when needed for unique situations. This avoids "throwing succession over the wall" and ensures knowledge and context are properly transferred.

8. Advice for the Aspiring Number Two (Integrator/COO) For those aiming to become the second-in-command:

• Self-Awareness: Understand your own strengths, motivations, and what kind of founder/visionary you work best with.

• Skill Building: Proactively acquire the necessary skills, especially in finance and operations. Understand the unit economics and how the business truly makes money.

• Focus on Value: View each role and experience as an opportunity to add tools to your "bag" that will make you a more effective partner to the founder and the business.

Ultimately, breaking the founder bottleneck requires intentionality, founder self-awareness, trust in delegation, and building a complementary leadership structure that allows the business to scale beyond its origins.

Transcript for Search & Skimming

Below is the complete, searchable text of the interview. You can use the speaker tags to quickly search or skim the conversation for key insights on the Founder Bottleneck and the visionary-integrator dynamic.

Randell Mauricio: Does it ever feel like you, the founder, are the biggest thing holding your own company back from its next level of growth? Well, that is called the Founder Bottleneck, and my guest today, Jeff Klaumann, of Collective 54, is an expert in helping businesses break through it. As an entrepreneurial COO who's advised hundreds of founders, Jeff shares two of the biggest warning signs that you're becoming that bottleneck: time and money. So if you're feeling stuck, this conversation's your roadmap. This is freeing the founder.

Randell Mauricio: Of course, I want to get into this problem because it is pervasive. It is a very, very real thing. But Jeff, I'd love to understand your origin story. How did you first link up with Collective 54 and what drew you to this, your founder and this organization?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I suppose I have a very nonlinear career. I have had a lot of zigs and zags, but, um, about 10 years ago, I had kind of a wake up call of recognizing that I had been spending so much time in big companies, but, you know, in my heart of hearts, I was actually an entrepreneur and I needed to be in a, in a different spot. Um, that wake up call really led me to joining, um, joining Collective 54 before it was anything. Right. Um, we have a rather fun story in late 2019 when, um, Greg Alexander and I met. Collective 54 was nothing more than an idea and a big, thick PowerPoint deck of what we thought it could be. And we got to know each other and, um, I was in a, in another pro serve firm that, uh, started with some partners and, he said, "Hey, do you have the stomach to, to start another, another firm?" And I said, "Yeah, let's do it." So, um, you know, that was 2019. Of course, here we are today with, um, you know, hundreds of members and we've had, I think about 50 exits that we've helped. Um, so members that have sold their firms. So kind of, uh, the vision is being realized.

Randell Mauricio: Jeff, that's a story that I resemble, but that's a chat for another day. Let's dig into the founder bottleneck itself. What is it exactly? And why is this such a significant problem to be aware of?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah. You know, the founder bottleneck is when the founder or co-founders, they really become the, uh, the bottleneck of the firm. They become the constraint that slows things down and kind of gets in the way of scaling. And ultimately the founder bottleneck can prevent a firm from selling and having a successful exit. So scaling a firm is far too much work for one person. But, what happens in almost every single firm and founder that I've spoken with—I suppose about a thousand of them so far in my career—is everybody starts their firm because they're brilliant in some domain. They are great software engineering or they're great, you know, sales consulting or something like that. So they start a firm. And then before you know it, they have some clients and they're delivering work and they need more help and they hire some people. And then one morning they wake up and they're like, "Wow. I have a company now. Now what?" Um, and you know, it's kind of that thing where I think Mark in the press. It's okay. And hundreds of times with our members. So I haven't seen a single firm that doesn't, you know, or that can avoid the founder bottleneck. It's one of those invisible ceilings. You're going to get there eventually and you're going to say, "Ouch."

Randell Mauricio: Yeah, absolutely. Jeff, one of the books that I'm revisiting, I read Rocket Fuel many years ago and I'm revisiting it now. And it's really interesting how sometimes you go back to books one or two years or three years later, and it's just like, there's new epiphanies, there's new takeaways. Anyhow, you sounded exactly like the first few chapters as I was listening to this audio book this morning. But let's dig deeper into the symptoms of the founder bottleneck. How would this manifest in the company?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, it really shows up in kind of two big warning signs and one is time and the other is money. Um, time is, as we know, there's only so many hours in the day and you can't suddenly start working 20 hours a day and think that's sustainable. So, you know, scaling a firm is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And what, you know, if we kind of go back to that story of, of, uh, founders starting a firm and kind of being hero style, you can't just keep being a hero and, and actually scale the firm. So often the founder becomes spread thin. So instead of being able to just focus on winning new business, suddenly now we have finances and now we have to recruit people and I've got to manage people. And, like all of these things start adding up. In the early days, you just got to sell work and then you got to deliver work, but as the firm starts to scale, there's more to it. So time and not having enough of it is a, is a very early indicator of the founder bottleneck. And the second is money. Um, when you're running a hero style firm that founders likely winning all of the business, or maybe they're the brilliant delivery. And, uh, and, uh, and, uh, okay. The warning signs I see over and over again.

Randell Mauricio: There is an idea in a term that you had shared earlier, hero with a thousand helpers, sometimes referred to as genius with a thousand helpers. And I remember many years ago when I first shared that with a founder, I remember personally feeling, ouch. Am I being abrasive? I've, over the couple of years, I've come to a point of acceptance in that it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just the reality that we face. And, and it's, in my mind, it's both simple and complex in that it is what it is. It represents the words, the words represent, uh, the meaning. But complex in that it has very profound impacts on culture. At least this is my ideology. So Jeff, I'd love to understand from you, or found, uh, genius with a thousand helpers or, or hero with a thousand helpers. What are the cultural impacts to, to the team if this problem is, is, uh, prevalent?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, this is a great one. Um, well, first off, like we kind of talked about before, often this is, you know, when you have this kind of approach of genius or a hero at some point, the growth just plateaus, you know, everything can't be dependent on that founder. So if every single decision, you know, has to run through that founder. He or she is going to burn out. It's just a fact of life. And of course, uh, in that burnout, that impacts the overall culture of the firm. You can imagine somebody who's burning out. They become short. They're overwhelmed. They can't keep every, you know, all the plates spinning type of thing. And that doesn't just hurt them. Of course it hurts them, but it also hurts the people around them. Those thousand helpers, because suddenly they can't get their part of the, of the work done. They can't move the ball down the field because they're, you know, dependent on the founder. The other aspect that starts to happen is if you have that kind of, I sometimes I've described this as kind of a, a, instead of a top down pyramid type organization, it, and, um, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just. And of course that's when people leave, that's when they, you know, their careers start to stall out. They, you know, feel stifled. They get frustrated. Um, they're not advancing in their own skills or doing the same thing over and over again, or they can't make a move without the founder. Suddenly they're not growing and that's when people leave. Um, so it really can, um, destroy the firm. And unfortunately I've seen this happen with a, with, uh, some members that I've, uh, I've met with.

Randell Mauricio: Yeah, seeing it too. So where do you start? How do you solve this million dollar question really?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah. You know, I, I think it, it starts first with, uh, with some recognition that oftentimes the identity of the founder and the firm are, are intertwined, you know, so there is some of that, um, you know, sensitivity that you mentioned and you just have to recognize it because you know, their brilliance is what got the firm off the ground, their brilliance to sell and deliver great work is, you know, part of their personal identity along with the firm identity. But, you know, you just have to recognize that sensitivity to begin with. But from there, I think it really starts with a self assessment of the founder. And, you know, if the founder has some, you know, some strong leaders around them. You know, not trying to define that the founder only does these things and every founder does the same five things. That's the wrong approach. It's instead kind of doing a self assessment and, you know, what are you great at and what do you love doing? And what are those things that you hate doing that you're not good at? Um, you know, what are those things that, and I'm going to talk a little bit about how we do that. At everything. And I, fortunately we have that kind of mentality that we need to. Yeah, yeah. You love doing. Scaling a firm's a marathon. Don't think that you can run a marathon if you hate what you're doing. So it really does start with, uh, with that self assessment.

Randell Mauricio: Jeff, I'm so glad that you started there. You really started high level as opposed to saying, well, the founder just needs to delegate. Sure. Delegation is a big part of it. It's a crucial part of it, but you actually started with the founder and through to your hub and spoke analogy, you've worked your way outwards. Why is that important? Let me ask that question. I have a couple of follow up. Why is it important to start with the founder? And as you had mentioned, their key contributions and others would would would use the term unique abilities.

Jeff Klaumann: Right. Yeah. Because it, you want to make sure you're delegating the right things. Um, and you want to make sure that you're surrounding or you're hiring the right people around the founder. So imagine you don't do the self assessment and you just go out and hire a number two or a strong leader, you know, like we talk about at the beginning, like at some point, the role of founder has to split. It has to become a founder who's focused on the future and a CEO, president, COO, who's working on today's business. It's just too much work for one person. Well, if you don't do that self assessment, you might hire somebody who's a mirror image of yourself. You might put somebody in that position thinking they're going to do all of this work, but it turns out you want to do that work. Like you just are setting yourself up for, um, for delegating the wrong things, hiring the wrong person, putting yourself in a bad position. And like I mentioned, I, I've actually seen this happen very specifically with a founder who identified their successor. But hadn't done this step. Failure of doing that first step resulted in a mass exodus from the firm because that was not done. So, uh, you really do have to think long term and it's not just something you do once. It's something that you are at today. What are the things that I need to do more of? And you have to constantly kind of go through an evolution because, you know, replacing yourself or splitting the founder into two roles doesn't happen overnight. It happens a little bit at a time.

Randell Mauricio: Without getting into sensitivities with this example you raised, what specifically was the issue? Was it the definition of who's on first, what's on second, or was it the personality traits and styles?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, both. I think it was actually a combination of both. Yeah. Um, wrong person in the seat and then not great definition about who was going to do what. So there was difficulty letting go of the things that the, you know, the second commander, the COO thought, uh, was going to take over. Um, and as a result, like couldn't, there was just frustration and couldn't work through it. So, um, definitely want to, to start as the founder with, um, you know, with identifying really that self assessment. And frankly, if you have a COO and president, the president should do it too, because there's probably things that he or she is doing that they don't really want to do and maybe aren't in their strengths. And so how do you put everybody in the position where they can have their biggest impact?

Randell Mauricio: I love that. You had mentioned that this relationship between the number one and the number two actually does evolve over time based on what the business needs and what what that partnership needs as well. Are you privy to sharing just how you and your founders dynamic has evolved over time?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, uh, when we first met, I mean, we hadn't worked together, so we had a lot of, of trust and relationship building, frankly, just to, you know, to work on, uh, while starting a firm, which of course, if anybody started a firm, you know how difficult it is to get, uh, get something started. So, you start in one day and you have kind of your key contributions or one of those things that you are, um, uh, you know, so specifically responsible for delivering, uh, but over time that starts to evolve because you can't just kind of like one and done. Um, so in our specific example, on a monthly basis, we would actually go through and say like, "Okay, here's your contributions. Here are my contributions. Is this still right? Are we still, you know, in the right position where we can be most, most successful?" We would go through and say, "You know what, in reality, I hate doing this. I've been doing it for a while and I don't want to do it anymore. So how do we move that off to somebody else?" Um, or should we just not be doing it anymore? Um, and it's really taken a, a very intentional approach of, of, so, um, I'm going to go ahead and start the presentation. So, um, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a that is, like, we have to be in a position where we can call each other out. Now, we don't have to be jerks about it, but, um, we've had plenty of examples where we say like, "Wait a minute, that's my lane. That's your lane. Oh, okay. Yep." You're right. We need to stay here. Um, so I think it, you know, it starts so foundationally with a relationship and trust and just being able to have, you know, have an open dialogue.

Randell Mauricio: I'm curious, and I don't know if this is a throwaway question or not, or how it lands with you, but were there some unique or funny ways that the two of you kind of met in the middle, as you both were kind of understanding, learning each other a bit better. I'll give you an example, Jeff, and I don't know if this is something you both did, but, um, each other's personality traits or personality styles. Is that something you two discussed to see that, to make sure that scientifically you weren't the same personality, that you were complementary?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, that's a, that's a great one. Uh, we actually, before we even decided, or I decided to join, um, join Greg and starting Collective 54, we actually use two different assessments to just understand our personalities. So we took, um, DISC assessment and Predictive Index to understand how different our personalities were and how they would match. Um, and we, so we were mindful of, you know, we're similar in ways, but we're also very different in ways. Uh, you know, you can imagine if you had two, you know, big time visionaries trying to start a firm, there's probably going to be conflict. Or if you had kind of two very, you know, tactical implementer type people, like who's going to figure out where we're going. So you have to have some compliment, you know, complimentary, um, you know, personalities, but beyond that. We also, um, we had both taken Myers Briggs, okay. And kind of, okay. Okay. Okay. Plenty of dinners and glasses of wine together to not just talk shop, but to really, hold on. We can send, you know, a wine, one line text message to each other, know exactly what the other is thinking.

Randell Mauricio: That's amazing. Yeah. In, in, in this journey of, of understanding and learning each other that surprised you, but in the best way possible? And, and perhaps it you over the edge and says, "Yeah, I'm gonna do this with you."

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, you know, I think, um, I think the part that's probably the biggest indicator is we realize that we both have this kind of all in mentality. Like once we make a commitment, we're all in and you know, there is no plan B burn the, you know, burn the ships kind of thing is, is our, uh, mindset and we both shared that. You know, to our core and had examples over and over in our lives. Um, not just like in our, like, this is what I say, but this is actually how I live. And that, um, I think that was really, um, really helpful to understand, you know, our, why our kind of mission, vision and values and how that, you know, how ours together fits into scaling the firm.

Randell Mauricio: This alignment is something that I've had the benefit of seeing between the two of you and, and Jeff in the, in, in the five years of being a member. or five years now, I think I've been a number of Collective 54, but in that time, there's been a handful of meetings that I've called with you, just asking you, how do you stay in alignment with your founder, Greg, and I've always appreciated your, your insights. In fact, you know, truth be told, I've always seen you as a role model for me. But the truth is, even though you are tight with your founder, there's going to be times of. Um, without going to the specifics, could you bring yourself back to perhaps one of the most challenging times? did you navigate it? And how did you make sure that your relationship was intact and unscathed?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, uh, there's one example that, um, that comes to mind where, I mean, frankly, I dropped the ball. I dropped the ball. And, um, and you know, Greg was like, "Wow, I can't, can't believe this happened." And I, I was disappointed in myself. I dropped the ball. He was of course disappointed. The ball was dropped. Um, but one of the things that we've gotten into as kind of a habit, if there is a, point of friction or something that hasn't gone well, we don't hide from it. We don't, um, you know, we don't just try to avoid it instead. I called him and said, "You know, I screwed up," and I might have used different language when I said that, "Thank you." You know, and I said, "And here's what happened." And, you know, and we talked it through and I can remember something that he said that, um, that I think kind of gave, gave the open space for us to have, um, have, okay. Countless things in this journey. So we're going to, uh, to, you know, tackle this one and we'll tackle whatever, you know, one comes up. There's a, a great, I was reading a book, uh, not too long ago and somebody was talking about how, you know, entrepreneurship isn't just like trying and failing, it's like failing 21 times, but knowing that you're going to try again, even if you fail on 22, even if you fail on 23, like it's getting up and trying again over and over and over again. And I think that that, you know, is really reflective in the relationship of, of partners when you're starting a business.

Randell Mauricio: Greg is such a larger than life personality, but what I appreciate about him is, is, um, his ability to care. And I don't know how, what words he would use, but he's got a big heart. And that story proves it.

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah.

Randell Mauricio: Jeff, listening to you, I can understand how many other founders and business leaders can hear your story and recognize that. Well, this is great. This is a Jeff's talking about a framework so that I can go out and find my own second in command, my own number two and implement this in my business. And certainly, um, the dynamic that you and your founder are operating under right now is that visionary integrator. Um, but I think you mentioned it earlier. There are going to be pitfalls and there are going to be roadblock. Um, there's going to be somebody out there who tries to implement this promotes a number two develops a number two. And then stumble. What is that? What's keeping them from achieving this holy grail of a relationship between a number one and number two?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah, I would say there's. Two big factors. Um, first and foremost, did they pick the right person? Do they have those complimentary skills that, you know, have different skills and experience so that one plus one isn't two, but it's, you know, one plus one is five type of thing. So that has to be, you know, part of it, if you have a mirror image of yourself, you probably selected the wrong person. Uh, the second part of it is really understanding as the founder, what you really, really in your heart of hearts want. So if you want to sell your firm and on day one, you want to leave, you have to tackle this. You have to find your number two, who you help develop to take over the business. If you don't, you'll have an earn out for three years and you'll be, you know, in the business. And I, I. Uh, and I get it because you're, you know, you started the firm, the firm's your baby. It's your idea that, you know, came from a seed and has grown into what it is today. It's hard to let go of that. But if you truly want a successful exit or you want to, you know, scale beyond, you know, what you believe is, is possible today with you as a leader, you have to start to let go. It's one of the hardest things I can remember in my career, I was leading a portfolio of products. Thanks. And my, uh, my director at the time came to me and said, "Hey, we've got bigger things for you and we need to put you into this type of role. I can see your impact, you know, growing in this role, but the hardest thing is going to be, can you let go of those products?" So if I see you let go, I put you in this position. So it wasn't, you're going into this position and then you've got to let go with these things. You have to let go first. And I remember her saying that so specifically to me. And I mean, clearly I hadn't thought about that before our conversation today. Um, but I think that holds true for founders as well. Like you have to let go.

Randell Mauricio: It's listening to your response, Jeff, the word that rings through in my mind is intentionality. And that's a word that you use often, too. And I totally appreciate it. When when you put it on the table, my next question is, do you track in this number one number two dynamic? What is the best way to make sure that you're succeeding and making progress? Thanks.

Jeff Klaumann: There's a number of different ways and I think it evolves a bit as the firm scales, you know, in the early days where, you know, the number two is just trying to take that first thing off the founder's plate. It's like, let's kind of give that try out and knock that, you know, knock that one thing off. but the way to really track this is with the, the key contribution inventory that we, uh, we developed to address the founder bottleneck and it starts with looking at all of those key contributions—not contributions—not the little things—key the word key is a really important aspect of it. What are those things as it relates to sales, as it relates to service delivery, new service and or product development, and then back office, you know, finance, HR, IT, legal, things like that, the founder is doing. How do we move those things over to the successor or the number two? So it starts with taking an inventory and literally going one by one and saying, "All right. Here's how we're going to move this. Here's how we're going to to move that." One of the things I see so many people know misstep is they almost throw Succession over the wall. They say, "Okay, you know, Randell, you're taking over sales, Randell, go off and take over sales." And that fails like, because like you haven't actually transitioned anything. All you've done is just. Silence. So here's how we do it. It's do. So now the number two is doing it. Um, and, um, yeah. All of those sorts of things, but then they flip roles. And now the number two is doing, they're selling that new client, but the founder is still there. And the founder afterwards are giving some coaching and saying, "Okay. That was great. is a little thing you might've missed. Did you catch this?" It's an opportunity for real coaching and development. And then the third step is just coach. And that's where the number two is outdoing it. And they're going back to the founder to get coaching and saying, "Hey, I encountered this unique situation. What would have you done in this particular instance?" But that really, that, you know, show, do, coach approach is the way to really move those, uh, you know, those contributions all the way over from the founder to the number two.

Randell Mauricio: As we draw to a close, I'd like to ask one more question, um, but to summarize and move forward from from the founders perspective, it is absolutely imperative that the founder is aware, is in touch, potential intentional about apprenticeship and, and planning out what those roles could be. So that's all fine and dandy. Yeah. Uh, but Jeff, you're, you're an entrepreneurial COO—the entrepreneurial number two, which I think is, is a rare breed. What advice would you give the second in command, or perhaps somebody who is vying for that role, um, but really needs to support the founder in getting there? What advice would you give that person?

Jeff Klaumann: Yeah. I think it starts with some self awareness of what, you know, what do you really want? Um, I mean, I've read a lot of books about, uh, you know, about COOs and about entrepreneurship and what it's like to start a company and to know that, you know, this is what I wanted. I, I was fortunate. Um, I think I was 28 or 29 is when I was meeting with, um, CEO of the company I was working with. And I told him I, I wanted to be a CEO one day of a small company. I didn't say I wanted to go, you know, be the CEO of IBM or something like that. I said, I wanted to be the CEO of a, of a small company. And he gave me that guidance to say, "Okay, well, if you're going to do that, we have to build some skills. Like you need to work on certain things. I'll send you off to business school," which was fantastic. And that gave me that foundation. So that back to your question is. I've really looked at things of, you know, what is the tool I can put in my bag from this experience to make me better as a number two, better, you know, growing myself into a CEO. And I've had to kind of shift my thinking of careers, just advancement and, you know, money and, you know, all of those. Silence. Kind of crazy example is, you know, I guess maybe it's been maybe 15 years ago I was I was at Sprint and I was I noticed an opportunity that I wanted to tackle and essentially, it was activity based costing what as I know it today, but I didn't know it as that at that time it was I was trying to get down to a unit economics of Measure. Okay. You know, and as sooner you understand finance and how, you know, how businesses really make money, the better off you'll be.

Randell Mauricio: Jeff, I want to thank you so, so much for your time for the business leaders out there watching and listening to this content. If you are sitting there saying to yourself, "I need me a Jeff Klaumann," you absolutely do. I'll tell you two things, check out Collective 54, uh, or reach out to Jeff Klaumann directly. But I can tell you that this membership based group is something that I hold near and dear because I've been a member for probably close to five years now and I've elevated my personal professional life, uh, not only because of the membership there, but because of folks like Jeff. So Jeff, thank you so much for spending the time with me.